


The Mythical Creature's Guide To Manners and Decorum

by aadarshinah



Series: The Guide Series [6]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Marriage, POV First Person, Stalking, Teen Pregnancy, Teenage Parents, Vampires, Violence, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 77,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aadarshinah/pseuds/aadarshinah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easy to fight. It's what comes after that's impossible to get over, and everyone's feeling it. Or, maybe, the Packs have just spent a little too much time as wolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alef

**Author's Note:**

> #3 in the Guide Series

"Life which disappears once and for all, which does not return without weight...  
and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime...mean[s] nothing."

Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being

* * *

The music was loud and pulsating, vibrating in my chest and shaking my breath, until all that was in the darkness was the feeling – the bass, heavy and real, his hands on my hips, his body hot as he stood behind me – and none of the thoughts and none of the fears. Just the feeling.

We were in Seattle. We had to leave, if only for one night. None of us could handle La Push today, not after this morning. We had to get away. If only for tonight.

The club we were in was called Catch-21 and had something of an ocean theme going on. It was also a twenty-one and up club, but between my natural hotness and the fact that the boys looked older than me, none of us were carded, not even Seth. And now Embry was at the bar, trying to get wasted but forgetting the werewolf metabolism. Where my brother and Quil were who knew, but I didn't care. I had Jake and we were making our way around the throngs of people towards the bathrooms.

It was February fifteenth. Matty's birthday.

When we reached the dark and shadowy hall beyond the bathrooms, Jake turned me around and pinned me to the wall, one hand against the wall just above my shoulder so I couldn't move even if I wanted to, the other travelling down and brushing the sides of my breasts, which were getting to be uncomfortably sensitive. My arms went around his neck, fingers tangling in his dark hair, and my lips crashed against his in the way that two people have always used to forget their troubles – hard and insistent and incessant, our tongues almost immediately joining in epic battle for dominance – while pressing myself as close to him as I could considering the two tiny people growing inside me.

We couldn't bear to think today.

Today was the day we put Matty in the ground.

It was the log that did him in. When it fell it bruised his ribs, yes, and through "shearing stresses" I didn't understand but I think meant the weight of the wood, his airways and blood vessels tore... He couldn't tell; maybe thought it was just a catch in his throat making breath hard to come by, or the bruises, or the cold air, but the blood and air gathered quickly in his lung, as if drowning him, and, because our werewolf hearts beat so much harder and faster than a normal humans while our lungs have remained the same size, what could have normally been corrected in less than an hour became fatal in the minutes it took for his body to heal the tears...

Blood and air remained, though, and collapsed his lung under the pressure of it, and, when Carlisle re-inflated it, the air somehow managed to get into an artery and into his heart...

Death was almost instantaneous at that point.

How do you explain to a person's parents that they'd died, not fighting an evil they didn't believe really existed, but because a stupid log fell on them? When the boy was not even fourteen? When you had promised to protect him and his sister? When part of you was screaming out with joy that you were alive, your babies were alive, and that everyone you cared about – except their son – was alive? What did it matter whether the vampires were free of their tyrants and free to have whatever government they chose when it was their son who'd paid the price?

I don't know. None of us did. It seemed wrong for us to be so happy that we'd lived, and that the dictatorship that had nominally ruled the mythical world was gone. Hell knew what would replace it, but God damn it all, at least we were alive. We were sad for Matty, grievously sad, and by turns we'd be fits of exuberance or wells of depression, unable to be anything moderately normal for the length of time it took to phase.

The funeral was today. It was unbearable. Afterwards we got into the Rabbit and Jake just drove because none of us could stand to be anywhere where people would tell us how sorry they were or tell us how they knew how we felt and before we knew it we were halfway to Seattle – we being the pack minus Judy, who was with her parents, and Zack, who was with Judy – and thought that a nice stiff drink or nine was what we needed to deal with today. For them at least. I couldn't drink, even if I'd wanted to – Jake saw to that.

Thus the club. Thus Embry at the bar on his who-knew-how-manyth beer. Thus Seth and Quil up to who-knows-what with who-knew-who God-knows-where. Thus Jake and I making out in the back hall of the club, his hands now travelling under my clothes and seeming baffled by the fabric he found there.

"God, Lee, I didn't even know you owned a bra any more," he protested, kissing my neck just below my ear. His breath was like fire and I swore I'd die if he pulled away.

"Apparently it's uncouth," I whispered with a slight moan, my hands sliding under his shirt to run up the washboard there, "to attend funerals without wearing underwear." I felt like I was burning everywhere he wasn't touching me. I needed him to touch me. I needed him.

"Oh, really?" he breathed, breath hitching as my hands moved southerly.

"Uh-huh," I said, undoing the button on his pants, "but you're in luck."

"I'd noticed that," and lips met again, hard and heavy, his mouth tasting of beer and sweet and sour sauce and that something that was so uniquely Jake, our hands still doing their own investigations, his cupping my breasts and holding me tight to him, mine dipping inside his uncharacteristic black slacks. We were still in our vampire-provided funeral things, the boys in black dress pants and black dress shirts, looking more like bouncers than mourners, their dark trench-coats left in the Rabbit, sleeves rolled up and collars unbuttoned; me clothes I would never wear normally, a knee-length dress that, with the addition of a addition of a long jacket and stupid veiled hat, completely hid the fact I was pregnant unless you knew I was and was looking for that curve... The hat was gone now, and the jacket, but the dress was still there, for the moment, and I felt like an actor at some horror movie funeral in it – no, like I'd been wearing a red dress instead, and all the eyes were on me, accusing me of not taking enough care of Matty, that it was my fault he died, my fault that I couldn't keep him alive when I promised Richard and Mary Mora that I'd keep their children safe...

"Lots of weddings coming up," I said as I broke away to breathe, kissing his jawline, his neck as he buried his face in my neck, shuddering from the movement of my hand, "and you can, apparently, get by at weddings without any..."

Abruptly, Jacob stepped back, and, breathing heavily, looked around.

"What is it?" I asked, sniffing the air, half-expecting a vampire or, God forbid, Seth coming upon us in the tenebrous hall. I smelled nothing, and as I turned back, questioning look on my face, he was putting his shoulder to a nearby locked storage closet and forcing it easily. It'd be just our luck too.

Grabbing my hand, his voice was low and heavy, almost wolfish, with desire as he tugged and pulled me in the closet after him. "I need you now."

"Patience is a virtue," I chided, even as I reached around for the zippier of my dress. Before long, it was just us in the closet, surrounded by cleaning supplies and stacks of folding chairs, making love in the dark like there was no tomorrow, because, while we'd managed to survive the war, we still didn't know if we could make it through the battle that was life, ever single beating hour and minute of it.

We were going to live. We were going to have a proper wedding for Mom and Billy to cry at (Alice was planning it for 1 May and being ridiculous about it already, though she'd only be back from South America for a week. If I had to look at another colour swatch of some shade of pink or white I would scream, to say nothing what I would do if I were asked about my calligraphy preferences for the invitations). We were going to have these twins, whenever they deemed themselves grown enough to be born (popular money was on sometime in April, don't ask me why), and we were going to find names for them and raise them and hopefully do a decent job of being parents, though we were only two for three on the pup count... And we'd get jobs or live off the Cullen's money forever (serve them right, the money-laundering, forever-living sparkly dolts) and we'd live happily ever after...

We could do it, I really think we can, we just have to try really hard. We're not cartoons, so it'll be difficult. I'll name the twins, I dunno, after Disney princesses if I thought it might help, 'cause I'm sick and bloody tired of dealing with the raw, monkey-assed deal life had given us. I wasn't even talking about the werewolf thing – it had turned out be quite pleasurable. I don't know what specifically it was, but I wanted to live in a world where we didn't have to fight and kids had to die a week before their fourteenth birthdays because of stupid, frog-humping logs and tyrannical monsters had never existed in the first place...

There was a pounding on the door. "I know what you're doing in there," Seth yelled loud enough to be heard over the sternum-thumping music and his pounding on the door, "and I'd rather not have to be close to it myself, but they've cut Embry off and we need you to settle the tab so we can get out of here."

Jake and I rolled our eyes at each other, parting with another hard, burning kiss that earned us another series of "knocks" on the door. The burdens of leadership, I tell you.

A moment later (after being greeted by Seth, who was holding both hands over his eyes), I was at the bar, paying the tab with "Leanne Wolfe's" credit card, it and the driver's licence the only things I'd kept from my brief foray into being reasonable. "How many did they let you drink?" I asked, gesturing to the tall, empty cans of Bush stacked around him.

"Twenty," Quil said, slipping one of Embry's (who flashed me a wink before going back to pretending to be passed out, 'cause that's what people who had twenty beers in one sitting were supposed to be) arms over his shoulder and hauling him towards the door. Seth, after glaring at Jake and me as if it was our fault he was sent after us while we were doing the deed, joined him.

"I wonder if he even got buzzed?"

"I dunno. They he had what? Three at the Chinese place and something like that at the Italian?" Werewolves going out to eat proved a natural problem, 'cause four or five trips to the buffet tend to be looked at rudely by the management of such places and the extra-large servings and multiple appetizers of other places only go so far on a wolf's stomach. Of course, the... extracurricular activities Jake and I had ended up engaging in at both places had helped work up our appetites. No idea about the others, but they always ate like vacuums anyway.

"It doesn't matter. He'll be sober before we get home."

"One good thing," I said as Jake and I left the club and headed out for the car, where Embry was now joking around with Quil and my brother, "about being a wolf: no hangovers."

"One day we'll have to see how many drinks it would take for us to get wasted. A purely scientific endeavour, of course."

"Like your 'biology project'?" I laughed. "We'd have to stock up on vodka. Comes in all kinds of crazy flavours too: vanilla, grapefruit, pepper, mango..." Let me just say three words: Rebecca's bachelorette party. "God, we're going to have to stop and find some mangos."

We were at the car now, and Seth, back to his happy, normal self now that Jake and I were both fully clothed, was laughing at me. "What? No more wheat thins and pickles?"

"I'll have you know it was triscuts and pickles. With cream cheese."

"Pregnant people are strange," Quil said definitively.

"Just wait ten years for Claire to grow up..."

"Why does it always come down to Claire, Embry? Why?"

"One, 'cause it drives you crazy, two, 'cause it's hilarious; three, 'cause it's true."

"She'll only be thirteen in a ten-"

"Fine, fifteen, whatever. You're still be like twice her age. Some people might call that robbing the cradle."

"Cradle, that's kidnapping the mom before the baby's even born."

"Well, at least I've Claire. You're still goggling over Ruth Huntly. Keep it up much longer and her dad's going to come after you with a baseball bat."

Mr. Huntly, in addition to having played football in high school and college, was also the Rez director, meaning the guy Olympia thought ran things in La Push. His time was mostly spent issuing fishing licences, giving "chats" about the importance of staying in school, and administrating the Thursday night bingo game in the old church.

"God, you've not asked her out yet, little brother? You're a bigger pansy than I thought."

"I'll have you know, Lee," Jake said, putting his hand on my knee for a moment before starting the car and backing into the lot, "it's a lot harder than you'd think." I snorted, but, then again, considering Jake's own Hamlet-esque asking and his bizarre proposal, maybe it was. "So where we going? Wanna find another bar, or you want to try and find somewhere to eat? Mexican maybe?"

"I could go for some Mexican, defiantly."

"Or IHOP. I'm feeling pancakes."

"It's like two in the morning. Are there anything besides bars open?"

"IHOP's twenty-four/seven, I think."

"Well, if you know where a fucking IHOP is...?"

I adjusted myself on the front seat, curling my legs up by the door and resting my head on Jake's shoulder, listening to the boys argue in the back. Idiots, all of them, but my family. My pack. My boys.

"Let's see... we have Andy's Steakhouse, Hooters, and some place called 'Basil Twist' on the right that still look open."

"Basil Twist sounds awfully fruity to me."

"And I veto Hooters, on the sheer fact Seth's too young for us to corrupt that way."

I heard Seth groan in the backseat. The night lights of Seattle glowed and sparkled in the rain that fell and gathered on the windshield like diamonds, and the worn fabric of the bench seats was just so comfy and warm and smelled like pine and earth and unwashed boys and the radio was playing "Kashmir" and I was feeling sleepy and sort of fuzzy for the first time in days... "I'll be seventeen next month!" he insisted. "Can't you make fun of Quil or Embry instead for once?"

"Quil has Claire and therefore the certainty of getting some at some point in his life. You cannot even ask out someone your own age."

"Well what about Embry?"

"Dude, I'm cool. You? You're a science nerd."

I yawned. "My brother's not a nerd."

"Thanks Leah. See, somebody likes me."

"Only enough to say our a dweb, not a nerd. Don't want to give nerds a bad name now do we?"

"I hate you."

I snorted.

"There's some place called the The Lone Horseman. Wanna try that?"

"Sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory place, like The Lone Gunmen."

"Have you seen the evidence? There had to be multiple shooters when they-"

"He was talking about The X-files, nutcase."

"Remember the one where they pretended to be married? Mr. and Mrs. Petri?

"That's a classic. Shame they jumped the shark."

"Why do they always do that?"

"I dunno."

"O! La Hacienda. Mexican! Let's go there."

"Hey, you just drove past it!"

"I was in the wrong lane, douche-bag. Let me do a U-turn- God, Leah, is that your phone?"

Half-sleep to the sound of their voices, I almost missed the sweet sounds of The Spice Girls coming, however muffled, from a pocket in my jacket. The may have gotten me a new phone to replace the one Nessie dusted, but they'd not stopped the ringtone game. Swearing, I answered. "What d'you want, bloodsuckers?"

"The Stock Market to rise again, world peace, a pony – no, I want to talk to you, Leah."

"I'm sorry, Leah's not in at the moment. This is her secretary, Bridget. Now hang up and I might tell her you called."

"You're hilarious."

"Look, Alice, I don't know what wonderland you subscribe to, but call me back when I'm actually awake enough to insult you properly."

"I would, but I thought I might tell you your mother called. The Elders expect your pack at a council meeting at nine and I assumed you might actually want to be back and, possibly, sober, for it."

"Fuck almighty," I spat, signalling for Jake not to turn into the parking lot for the restaurant, but to continue on as I hung up the phone. "The Elders want to talk to us."

"Fuck."

"Flaming fuck in a Ferrari, that's what it is."

"About what? Did the leech say?"

"Three guesses." Matty. The leeches. The packs. "Actually, scratch that. If you can think of something they might not want to talk to us about..."

"Camembert."

"Gazuntite."

"No – the cheese. I doubt Grandpa and Billy and Sue'll want to talk to us about cheese."

"They could want us to help at a community wine-and-cheese fundraiser."

"Or want to know what kind of cheese Alice'll be serving at the reception."

"Or what type of cheese Emily should serve at hers."

"Okay! So they might be talking about cheese. Just trying to help."

"Xanex might help. Or maybe vicadin."

"No, nothing will help."

"We're doomed."


	2. Bet

"To summarize: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto,  
the least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting  
themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.  
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

Douglas Adams The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

* * *

When we got to the old church, everyone was already there. Everyone being The Elders and the La Push pack, plus Judith and Zack waiting for us on the steps.

"Aunt Leah, Sam and them," Judy said, only the red rimming about her gold-flecked eyes giving away that something might not be a hundred percent right with her, "went in 'bout two minutes ago. Heard some raised voices from inside, but nothing that we could make out."

Eloquently, "Shit," I offered, running my hands through my hair and, when that failed, I turned to Quil and started trying to finger comb his.

"What the fuck, Lee?" he said, wiggling away from me, looking at me like I was going insane. Maybe I had.

"Hair cuts. After this is over, we're all getting hair cuts."

"Sure, sure. Let's just settle for trying not to get into a fist fight with Sam's pack."

"Or phasing," I added, pulling the long jacket Alice had sent me to the funeral with out of the car and wrapping it around me even though it made me feel like I was running a fever, for some reason not wanting the other pack to see I was pregnant, though Mom and Billy had probably told anyone who'd asked and most of those who hadn't. This thought didn't help any, and I went up to Jake and tried to make sure he looked presentable. "Or maiming anyone. Or-"

Jake grabbed the hand that was trying to straighten his collar. "You really need to get a different nervous habit, Lee. Promise me you'll behave yourself?"

"I always behave," I frowned. "It's them that get their noses bent all out of whack and start attacking me..."

He rolled his eyes and kissed my forehead – the only part of me he could easily reach. "That's all I ask." He still held my hand though, using it to pull me closer in the way I noticed he did whenever he was in that jealous, Alpha-male mode. I might've complained, but he was warm and scared too, and I couldn't deny wanting to be near him in the first place. Jake turned to the pups. "Whatever happens, you behave yourselves too. Stay with Quil. You keep an eye on them, alright? Good. Everyone ready?"

We all nodded.

"Well then..." he took a deep breath and tightened his arm around my waist, then headed into the church without another word. A tingle of fear formed in my throat, trembling down my chest; I knew it was wrong to be almost more scared of The Elders than I'd been of The Volturi, but those were the facts when you got down to the brass tacks of it all. The Volturi, we knew, were just aiming to kill. Our parents could do much, much worse.

Mom, Old Quil, and Billy were sitting towards the back of the room, the cheap plastic arbour pushed back against the far wall, a folding table in front of them. There was nothing on the table but a couple bottles of water and, oddly enough, a dictionary. On the left were ten chairs, two rows of four at the back and a row of two towards the centre; on the right was the same set up, only Sam and Jared were in the front seats, with Paul, Colin, and Brady in the middle and their pups – John Ericsson, Tim Morton, and Jimmy Ballard, I'd later learn – in the last. Our pack mimicked them unconsciously, Judy and Zack taking the back row, me and Jake the front and, obviously, everyone else the middle.

I crossed my arms in front of me. I didn't like this. I don't know what pipe dream The Elders are smoking now, but I know it's going to end badly. I wanted to shoot them dirty looks, but seeing as how The Elders are my mom, my father-in-law, and my husband's great-uncle, I decided this was probably a bad idea. I settled for glaring at Sam's feet instead. Stupid feet. Stupid pretender Alpha. I so needed to think up a better nickname for him than Kate's Esau. I think I'll stick with Idiot for now.

"So," said Jake, turning in his chair towards our parents and Old Quil, "how're things?"

Lightly, "You'd know, son, if you visited an old man more often."

Shrugging, "Rules are rules." Yeah, rules we created dingbat. Sometimes I really worried about Jake, I really did.

Old Quil decided to interrupt before Billy could start talking about cookies, which, while delicious, had very little to do with why we were here, unless The Elders had decided we should mask our werewolf activities as rival girl scout troops. Last I heard, people thought that our pack at least was doing some neo-native, Quileute revival thing out in the woods, complete with big-house and totem poles. Vaguely right, I supposed; they just hadn't gone back far enough with their idea of now "native" we'd gone. And I'd kill for a cookie now. Aren't the stupid cravings supposed to have stopped by now? Stupid pregnancy. Stupid Jake for getting me pregnant. Stupid me for trying to sleep in the Rabbit on the way back from Seattle. "That's rather why we're here. We'd rather like to know what the vampires are doing, now that their fighting is over."

I contained a snort. Over? Sure, the war may be over, but obviously they'd never seen leeches duelling over the remote.

"They've rather got their hands full figuring out who's going to rule their world now that the Volturi are too extra-crispy to do so."

"You'd think," Jared mumbled from across the room, "that they'd have thought about it before their little revolution."

"Well," I snapped, "you'd've hoped Kim would've given some thought about alternatives, like maybe a nunnery, before letting you imprint upon her."

Paul added his two cents, "Well, at least Kim's not a crazy, neutered bitch like you." Too bad his two cents was probably the only cash he had. We were doing all the hard work of protecting the Rez; you'd think theirs would go out and get jobs or something and stop living in, I dunno, their girlfriend's father's house for instance.

"Least she's got more balls than you," Quil said almost casually, examining his watch. If he got any more patient, I swear he'd be running backwards sometimes. Well, I guess you gotta be patient to wait fifteen years for your imprint to grow up... He's going to have major issues by that point. And maybe a cartoon fetish. "Poor Rachel. She must be a great actress, though, to get through a night with you."

"Least he's not a paedophile."

"Least he's not a snot-drinking, ass-raping, monkey-fondling shit-head like you."

"Which," Mom said loudly, in the way moms have of being able to be heard above arguments, "brings us to our next order of business. This two packs thing is getting ridiculous."

Sam the Idiot, going rather bug-eyed, looked at her. "Forgive me, Mrs. Clearwater, but we were never meant to protect bloodsuckers."

"No," Jake snarled, "we were meant to keep people safe, not try and kill innocent children."

"Bella's spawn is no more innocent than Leah is."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I yelled, jumping to my feet. Sure, I might've spent the better part of last night fucking around with Jake in semi-public places, but that didn't make me a whore. I mean, it's not like we weren't a) married or b) adults, sort of, or c) … well, I don't have a "c," nor am I sure they know more than Jake and I got engaged (I'm still trying to figure that one out myself), but still. Adults, people!

Jake was not a moment behind me, as were the pack, lupine growls poring from our human throats as, oddly enough, they decided to defend my "honour" or some other such shit as that, and were met by the other pack growling right back at them. "Lee, let me handle it," Jake said without looking at me, putting a hand on my shoulder and pushing, forcing me to sit back down. Stupid (incredibly hot and sweet and annoying) Alpha. Taking an angry pace forward, until he was right in front of The Grand Idiot himself, Jake hissed, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Uley?"

"She protected the thing."

"So did I!"

Subversively, I said from my seat, "Nessie's not a thing. There's a whole sub-species of human-vampire hybrids." Well, five, but still. "'Sides, I like her twenty times more than I ever did you."

Seth, whispering from behind me, "I don't think that's helping."

"Oh, go watch Sesame Street."

"God's sake, Jake, she's not even a year old yet and already had a war fought over her. You need to stop mooning over Bella Swan and realize she and her child are evil-"

"I think you need to get your head out of your ass, Uley."

Mooning over Bella Swan my ass. "I think we need to kick it further up until he finds his brains somewhere in there."

"Boys," Billy said, "can't we leave everyone's asses where they are for the moment and get back to the point of the matter?"

This "behaving" thing was getting on my last nerves. So I forgot all about it and decided to be my normal, bitchy self. Stick with what you're good at, that's what I've always said. "What is the point of the matter, Wheel-man? We can't fucking stand those jerks, they can't fucking stand us, and if we have to be around each other very much longer you're going to have Wolf War Three going on inside your bingo hall, and, in case you've somehow managed to forget, they," I waved my hands generally at the boys, "shed terribly, so give us the low-down and we'll just be moseying along."

"Moseying?" Embry asked, leaning forward.

"Yes," I whispered back, "moseying. You got a problem with that?"

"No," he snorted, "not at all Your Most-High Alpha-ness."

I looked over at Jake. He seemed about to fall to the floor with laughter. Idiot.

Slowly, Sam half-turned towards The Elders, "As loathe as I am to agree with Leah," (loathe? I swear, if my mother wasn't here I'd ask him just how loathe he was when, the week before finals, he snuck into my room and all but asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. Then I would've pointed out that he took my shrug as a sure-Sam,-anything-you-want-Sam-you-big-hunk-of-manliness-you, and that five minutes later I was back to studying for my US exam and he was crawling back out the window. Then I might've said something about how I kept my window locked for the next two weeks, spent another two weeks visiting Emily, who I still liked then, and how I kept on making excuses not to see him until he showed up at my house while Emily was there and she opened the door and that was it. Then I might've said something about how he might've potentially turned me off sex forever if Jake hadn't been rather insistent on changing my mind, added something about wolf mating season being the winter, pointed out how it was winter, and then whispered something in Jake's ear that would make him blush. And then I would have gone back to glaring at Señor Idiot with a ha-ha-ha-looks-like-you-didn't-destroy-me-as-well-as-you'd-hoped,-Uley smile plastered across my face. Loathe indeed), "she's right. Jacob chose to break away in the first place, so he and his have lost all claim to La Push-"

Billy patted the dictionary. "I've been doing some reading about that actually." Pulling it towards him, he opened it to a marked page and, leaning down, "Where is it? Ah, here. Alpha. It says a lot of things, but basically, when it comes down to it, is says, '...one male and one female (called the Alpha pair) fulfil this role... the Alpha usually decides the fate of the group... though other pack members may guard the maternity den used by the Alpha female...'"

I looked at Jake as if saying, Please tell me your dad isn't determining pack policy based off of what it says in a dictionary?

He looked right back at me. Well, at least it's not TV Guide or Reader's Digest, which, while true, did nothing to help.

"Now we seem to have an excess of Alphas and two unnecessarily hostile packs. So here's what you're going to do. You lot are going to find some way to get along, and it's going to end, one way or another. Some of us, you see, would like to be able to have our children visit us every once and a while."

"Like that's going to happen."

I shook my head. "No, its quite simple, you see: we don't elect our leaders; Alpha is hereditary. Jake's the great-grandson of Ephraim Black, Sam is not, so Jake's like the Grand High Pubah, and what he wants goes. So what do you want, Jake?"

"Personally, I'd like to see Sam roasting over an open flame for what he tried to do to you-"

"That's not being helpful." Sweet, but not helpful. "Just decide something so we can get the hell out of here. If we're lucky, Esme will have made waffles."

"Anyone who runs out on his tribe is not fit to rule," Sam said, "his own pack or anything else."

"Runs out? Maybe you've forgotten that it's only 'cause Jake and us helped the Cullens out the Volturi didn't kill them all and come onto the Rez and kill anyone who might carry the werewolf gene."

"If he just would've let us kill the Spawn in the first place-"

"They still would've come-"

"-then they wouldn't have gotten Matthew Mora killed."

I leapt out of my seat and stalked over to Sam. "Cheap blow, Mr. Let-Me-Run-My-Mouth-Off-About-Things-I-Don't-Know-the-First-Damn-Thing-About Uley. At least we fought for something we believed in. You? Stay at home in bed with your night light and your muffins in your pretty pink panties? We," I poked him, "tried to keep him the hell out of the fighting, but," I poked him again, "sometimes things happen that are the bloody fuck out of our control," and, yet again, I poked Sam, "so why don't you SIT DOWN and SHUT THE FUCK UP about things you don't know anything about."

To my surprise, he did. As did the rest of his pack.

"See?" I said, gathering my sarcasm to me. "Simple. Jake's in charge, which means I'm in charge, and I'm dead hungry, so let's get out of here."

Jake shook his head, and nodded. "It'll probably be best if do go. I'll like send our demands or something by mail... 'cause I don't think staying here is going to end well. By Dad, Mrs. Clearwater, Mr. Ateara." Once we were outside, he started to laugh. "That's why I love you, Leah."

Confused and, yes, very hungry, "'Cause I yell at people?"

"'Cause life's never boring with you around."


	3. Gimel

"You'd get things so scrambled up nobody would know who to fight any more.  
You'd make a mess, a terrible mess, Finny, out of the war."

Gene Forrester in John Knowles A Separate Peace

* * *

I was woken to the sound of politics.

It was the first Tuesday after Matty's funeral and, as such, the first day the pack had gone to school since my Seoul trip, thus proving that without me they'd all be dirty, uneducated ragamuffins. After they left, I went inside to find Kate in the hope that, if she insisted on pestering me with any wedding details, it was to be cake tasting. Never did find Kate. I got as far as the library, moved a couple of dusty old books off one of the couches and something that might well have been an original copy of the Magna Carta, and laid down. The plan had been to rest (something that was getting more and more annoying to have to do as, according to Carlisle anyway, I appeared to be passing the halfway point of my pregnancy, never mind the fact I couldn't have been much more than two months along. As best as I could tell, the only reason he thought this was that I'd reached the point that, even with baggy coats and distracting hats, no one could think any longer that I was just a skinny girl who'd put on some weight) and then continue on to the next floor, but the couch was just too comfy and I was just too tired.

Thus my annoyance at being awoken by Carlisle saying, quite firmly, "...'the state of men without civil society […] is nothing but a war of all against all; and that in that war, all have a right to all things.'"

Tanya, with a sigh, "We've no disagreement that we need some sort of government, if only to keep us from being exposed, or true Immortal Children from being created, or from the business in the South from getting out of hand again, but we don't exactly have all that many choices on what to do. We've all been around long enough to know how power, if it doesn't corrupt, is abused, misused, misunderstood, and/or allowed to languish by those who hold it – so we just have to find some way of putting someone in charge without giving them power."

"What we need," said Kate gravely from somewhere near my feat (which, when I opened my eyes a moment later, was where she was. Specifically, my feet, painting my toes in alternating "Pink Desire" and "Blue Amusement" nail polish, "is to find an ageing, solipsist hippy, give him a cat, and hide him in an unprobability field."

"No." That was Ed-weird. Defiantly. No one else could sound so condescending – not enough that you could take offence at, but enough to let you know what he thought of your idea – with one word.

"Well it's not like we can have a democracy. Give a monkey power and the world will be nothing but bananas. There are what? Maybe eighty nomadic and southern-clan vampires? There's are barely a quarter of that many of we old ones, who know the value of staying hidden, who remember why we should not gorge ourselves in cities or make children into our kind." I, fully awake now and realizing what torture Kate was putting on me, tried to jump up, only to find my feet held fast. "Hold still, Lee. This stuff only dries so fast you know."

"Damn right I don't. Now let me go," and that's when I noticed my legs. Which is to say, what was on them. More specifically, they were brown leggings, as opposed to, well, nothing, as I'd been wearing one of my trademark dresses when I dragged my tired self up here. Looking up higher, I could see that said dress had been replaced by a long-sleeved shirt and some sort of weird dress thing that went from my thighs to below my breasts. From my weird angle, I looked like some sort of, I dunno, Robin Hood ready to go fight vampires in Transylvania. Seriously, I saw a similar get-up in a horror movie once. And I'm pretty sure it's title might have been Robin Hood in Transylvania; I blame the leeches. "Better yet, start running so I don't have to kill you in front of all these witnesses."

"Leah, Leah, Leah," said Alice, who I now noticed was sitting on the other arm of the couch and, therefore, probably the one who'd instigated this travesty, "we're already dead, honey. Technically it would be necrocide."

"Or re-murder," Kate added helpfully.

I growled at both of them.

Tanya, without even looking at me, "Just let them have their fun," sniffed dismissively and continued, "Whatever you may feel otherwise, Carlisle, in the case of our species any sort of democracy will inevitably lead to the tyranny of the majority. Our leaders must be installed and their power assured. No good ever came from letting people do as they would without giving them cause to fear the policeman lurking 'round the corner. In your goodness you fail to see how few are the least bit good at all; you forget that, where you immediately abstained, the rest of us fought with the devils on our shoulders and in our hearts to even think there might be another way. If we do not put in place some government that cannot hope to be overthrown, or at least one strong enough to make that idea too unpleasantly difficult for our nomadic brethren to consider. We are not angels, Carlisle, no one is. And if the fear and force are what is needed to keep us from becoming devils, then that is what we must do."

"Angels, demons," came a voice from behind me, which I would have jumped at if I could. I hadn't seen Garrett standing behind the couch (well, duh, I mean, I look forward, he's behind... but I hadn't smelt him either, probably because of all the other leeches in the room, "this is getting unnecessarily religious, I think. What has government to do with religion, especially one that, whatever ultimate truth there may be, has forsaken us?"

"Quisque suos patimur manis," the mind-raper told him, even as I managed to get myself sitting upright, if awkwardly, as Kate continued to hold my feet so my nails could dry.

Insult people in English, you bed-wetting, toe-sucking, porcupine-fondling pervert.

Apparently Garrett had a similar thought because, not a moment later, he asked, "English, please?"

"'Each of us bears his own hell,' from The Aeneid."

"Wherever it's from," he said, in a tone that made me remember the stories Kate had told me of her "Galahad," the Revolutionary, "and however true it may be, this sounds nothing more to me Tanya than the eact same argument the Volturi were using. They cared nothing about the death of a child – it was free will they were trying to murder."

"Free will?" I snorted, "There's no such thing. Oh, maybe for the little things, but some things are inevitable. Vampires and half-mad governments being two of them. Another being the fact your girlfriend won't let me go." I tried to shake free. "I'm not you're bloody pet, I'm a human-being who'd rather not be bored to death... I'll go play Go Fish! with Nessie or something... or clean your basement... just stop treating me like a Barbie doll."

"See?" said Garrett, as if he'd made some point, gesturing at me.

Kate – slowly – let me go, only to throw a pair of knee-high boots on me before I could slink out of her reach, "What we need is some sort of... polyarchy... where no one group can suppress the others, as The Volturi did, but enough so as to enforce the rules that we all agree must be enforced: secrecy, safety, and security."

"A council," Carlisle agreed, speaking up once more, "where none rule so much as carry out the laws."

"Not a triumvirate – that would be too few," Tanya continued, "nor a decemvirate – too many, but a... pentumvirate?"

"But who would be the five?"

"Zafrina, Siobhan, Carlisle, and myself – and to settle any disputes that may arise between us, we could find a nomad, any nomad, and have them break the tie."

"I am not sure," demurred Doctor Why-Do-I-Even-Bother-Pretending-With-These-Tests-When-My-Super-Vampire-Bat-Powers-Tell-Me-You-Have-(Insert-Diagnosis-Here)?

Edward, being Edward, disagreed, quoting, "'Covenants without swords are empty words,'" from some source the others seemed to know.

I left them to it, high-tailing it out of the room as soon as Kate had stopped buttoning up the annoyingly tall shoes. (Pause for a moment to allow me to seethe at said shoes, my feet having grown quite used to being unshod and vaguely insulted that they'd managed to find something in my clown-size. Grr. Okay, I'm over it. Mostly.) I was halfway down the stairs before I realized Alice was following me. "I'm not letting you slather me in make-up, 'do' my hair, or try to convince me that I should carry white roses or lilies-of-the-valley or whatever else you're thinking of trying to do, so save yourself the energy and-"

"Jasper, Kate, and I all believe you are developing some sort of neurosis from spending too much time here and not enough time with your human friends."

I glared at her. It was Death Glare Mark Four, and one of my personal best, if I do say so myself. However, it must have been undermined somewhat by the clothing she's picked out for me, 'cause it didn't faze her a single bit. "I don't have any human friends."

"Exactly."

"Where's Ness?"

"Bella and Rosalie took her to a park in Oregon, just north of Portland."

'Cause Washington didn't have good enough parks for the kid? I shook my head. "Well, where are my clothes then – mine, not this stuff."

"I stole it."

"Stole it!"

"For charity. Emmett's taking it all to the Salvation Army as we speak."

Snarling, "All of it?"

"Well, none of it fit you any more, and you were wearing holes through what little you had left, and patches were so Depression Era – so I decided to take things into my own hands."

I tried to keep from phasing and ripping Alice's head off, if only because Nessie liked her for some peculiar, Nessie-reason. "I am stealing the Audi and getting out of here until I can be sure sanity has returned."

"Good," she clapped like a demented pixie on a sugar-high – which is to say, exuberantly, while bouncing up and down and smiling a little to widely. "The keys are on the hook in the garage." And then she ran upstairs, giggling, I swear to God.

It's only when I'm in the car and heading down La Push Road to I realize that I am heading to the Rez, rather then, oh, Port Angeles where I could buy replacement clothes or, I dunno, somewhere else. I also realized that I couldn't remember most the time since pulling out of the Cullen's garage, meaning I hoped I'd not a) run over someone or, b) been abducted by aliens, though I thought "b" was a bit too unlikely. I mean, what were the odds that a werewolf living with vampires would be abducted? Exactly. They'd have normal people to be figuring out still before worrying about oddballs like us.

But more to the point, I was driving towards the Rez, where technically I wasn't allowed to go, with no idea of what my subconscious was doing driving there. Sure, I could go to the school, find Jake, and together find a broom closet, but that would probably undermine my whole "school is important" lecture and, while it'd be fun to piss of Sam, there's no guarantee if, say, I went home and hung out there for a while that Sam would ever notice...

Maybe it was leftover anger at being dressed up by leeches and having my own clothes stolen, or maybe it was because, deep down, I really was just a bitch with a sadistic touch, but this gave me an awful, terrible, wonderful idea...

Which is why, a few minutes later, I was pulling up to Sam and Emily's place.

"Hey Em," I said as soon as my cousin opened the door, obviously surprised that someone had bothered knocking. "How're things?"

The great thing about Emily, one of the reasons she'd been one of my best friends before she decided to play hey-let-me-see-if-I-can-French-your-boyfriend-on-your-couch-at-just-the-right-moment-so-you-see-us-on-your-way-downstairs-to-yell-at-us-to-turn-the-TV-down (I acknowledge that Sam couldn't do a thing about it, having imprinted and all that, even if I do think he's a rat-sniffing fish-assed used-douche-wrapper for doing so. I even acknowledge that Emily couldn't help Sam imprinting upon her, and that she probably couldn't help being overwhelmed by so much love, devotion, whatnot that people like Jared and Quil spill on their imprintees, and so her making-out in a severely under-clothed state before they'd known each other for much more than what I'd later discover was half-an-hour. I can even say it probably wasn't her fault that she needed that kind of love rather than, oh, want a better father figure than wonderful Uncle Eric, or maybe a pet, as Uncle Eric and Aunt Lisa never let her have one. But still. Understanding is one thing, forgiveness is another, and I can only do one of the two), is that she's not one to pester about annoying little details like, "Leah, we've not spoken to each other civilly in ages, what you doing here?" or "Why are you dressed up like an elfin version of that girl from Van Helsing?" or even, "Why are you on the Rez when you know that the pack in general and Sam and Jared in particular won't like you being here?" Oh no, Emily just blinked once or twice, pulled me into the kitchen and, putting a kettle on, commented as causally as one could in these situations, "Oh my goodness, look at you Lee." She placed her hands on my shoulders, held me at arms length for a moment, admiring the very clear sign of my forest escapades with Jake, and then pulled me in for a tight hug. "You look fit to burst. I'm so happy for you."

In case you hadn't noticed, I didn't have a plan here other than go-talk-to-Emily-at-home-so-that-Sam-can-know-I-was-there-and-he-can-blow-his-false-Alpha-gasket, so I settled for a, "You are?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't I be?" she busied herself with getting cups and hot coco powder from the shelves. We'd been such close friends once, even closer than Rachel and Rebecca and I had been...

"I dunno what I was expecting. I just had to get out of the leeches' house for a while – their arguments over what government they need would make a medieval philosopher headachy – and kinda wound up here."

"Well," she said, placing a cup in front of me, "I don't care why you're here. I've missed having you around. It gets so tiring being around all these boisterous boys day in and day out."

"Tell me about it."

"Oh, I don't want to talk about me. I'm boring. I want to hear about you. You're what four, five months? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

I shrugged. I really didn't know the answer to myself. Probably some wolf thing that I didn't know enough about to ignore. "Dunno. Still getting used to it myself. As for how far along I am, these guys're growing at like two, three times normal speed. Our best guess is I'll pop sometime in April."

"Guys?"

"Twins."

Emily seemed to brighten a full hundred watts. Why, I dunno, but I guess some people are like that about babies... Creepy. "Oh, wow. Leah! You and Jake must be so happy... Have you thought of names yet? Oh, forget that for the moment, we'll have to throw you a baby shower..."

Quickly remembering why Emily had annoyed me sometimes as well, I backtracked, "Er, no, Em, that's really not necessary..."

But it was too far gone. "Yes, of course it is. Just leave it all to me... Rachel and I were on the phone this morning talking about how you needed a wedding shower, we can just roll it all together-"

"Wedding shower?" Oh please oh please oh please tell me Alice hadn't-

"Yes. The invitations came in the mail this morning." She had. I was afraid to find out how gaudy they'd ended up being – or where she'd finally decided on holding it. She'd been talking about the Space Needle for a while.

Just then the kitchen door opened, and you-know-who appeared. He looks angry. Good. My evil plan is working. Mwa-ha-ha. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Sorry. Like I said, been watching too many old movies with the leeches.


	4. Dalet

"Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion….  
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as vice from virtue.  
Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth…"

Charlotte Brontë's Introduction to Jane Eyre

* * *

"What," he said as calmly as one could expect from a man undergoing an apoplectic fit, "are you doing here?" Sam was shaking more than a little, but time as a werewolf had long taught be the difference between the quiver of someone about to phase and the slightly less violent tremble of someone who was fighting successfully against themselves not to. For a moment, it seemed like he couldn't control himself, and I was ready to phase out of these stupid clothes and do the whole best-defence-is-a-good-offence thing, 'cause, whatever else Emily might be, she was still innocent (in this) and didn't deserve to be mauled (again) because her fiancé failed out of anger management more times than he can count up to. It was only a moment though, and soon the shaking settled down to the normal angry wolf level, wherein it looked like we'd a case of hypothermia coming on. I was glad; as much fun as tearing Sam limb from limb would be it a) would get me nowhere and b) be more than a risk to the twins then I was willing to take. And Jake was already going to blow a gasket when he found out I came here without him... but you just couldn't have two Alpha males in the same room together and expect to get anything done.

"Me? I'm trying to convince my cousin she doesn't need to throw me a baby shower. I don't want one, don't need one, and any party without vodka is a party I don't want to attend." I said this as flippantly as possible.

Emily, who was still sitting calmly next to me at her dining room table, almost snorted her hot chocolate out her nose at the memory. "God! The vodka bar at Beka's bachlorette party... and the chicken... in the..." (she had to stop here because she was laughing so hard she was coughing. Being Sam's imprint, Sam naturally did not like this turn of events and, quite gently for a wolf, clapped her on the back so that she could breath again, and pulled up a chair, seeming to decide getting into an apoplectic rage in front of the fiancée he'd maimed in a similar fit probably wasn't the smartest idea.) "Oh, Lee, I've not thought of that in ages... No, we're keeping you away from vodka this time... not that we'd have it at a baby shower but, God..."

"Werewolf metabolism," I sighed, turning from her to glare at Sam. "Embry drank like a whole keg on his own this weekend and barely got plastered at all. We're planning a scientific enquiry one of these days to see how much alcohol it takes for us to get drunk. It should be... interesting. Emmett expressed interest in joining us, so if you want to come see if a vampire can get drunk... It should be interesting."

"Emmett?"

"The big one with muscles. Got himself mauled by a bear sometime in the '20s, now spends his time playing video games and annoying me." And taking my clothes to the Salvation Army on Alice's request. I was going to have to fill all of his video game cases with jello or something. No, tapioca pudding, the food of the devil. Messier too.

"Ah. And why does he want to do this?"

"I dunno. Boredom. Velleity. Possibly a bet. They have a terrible thing for bets, the vampires. Last time I paid attention, the pot for guessing the sex of the twins was like five, six thousand."

"Dollars?" Emily asked, surprised. It was odd, having hated her for so long, falling back into our old routines again...

...I remember when I went up to visit her after graduating, during the impossibly long extravaganza of her brother David getting married to Marissa Bahokas telling her how Sam and I had been dating for like ever and it was just like... not love, not for me at least, but something to do, and then there was the sex and it wasn't even that it was uncomfortable – I read books and knew it usually was, the first time – or awkward or anything, it was just... sorta empty and her telling maybe I'd just not found the right guy. I remembered agreeing with her, and saying that if I could think of some way to break-up with him I probably would, though it was nice having dates and all of that, even if I didn't really care for him. I remember, when I saw her on the couch with him, my first thought was well, I didn't expect her to help that way. My second was how the fuck could you? and my third was something along the lines of get out of my house you home-wrecking, trust-betraying, couch-dirtying, frog-fucking, goat-tipping pieces of week old monkey shit left in the sun. Thoughts four through eight were mostly along this line, while at nine I decided I would sit in my room for a while and figure out why I wasn't more angry than I was...

I only bring this up because now, sitting here, drinking hot chocolate with my cousin and the person we've both fucked in our time, I can't help but think how much Sam must be hating me right now for that fact and that fact alone. He must be worried, in whatever part of his body that actually does the thinking, about how we're sizing him up or some other macho Alpha thing behind his back. This made me smile.

At the same time I Emily had spoken, though, Sam had managed, sounding somewhat strangled, "Twins?"

I scooted back my chair a bit so he could see the balloon-like bulge under my shirt. It wasn't exactly unnoticeable today, what with my lack of a Queen-of-England-esque hat. "Yeah. Terrible pain when they get angry and phase, 'cause then I have to phase until they decide they want to be human again, and sometimes that can take hours when I'd rather be, I dunno, something else."

Sociably, seeming to have decided that it was best to ignore Sam when he was angry and let him calm down on his own, "You picked out names yet?" She'd always done that when I was angry with her too. It was rather odd to see her doing the same with someone else, almost... I dunno, a violation, though God knew how long it'd been since- No, I knew that. Sixteen days exactly after graduation, and I was twenty-one now. I'd no right to be bothered by it at all. But I was. No one should be nice to Sam at all, not even Emily, not after what he'd done.

"Kate's been doing that – Kate's one of the Denali veggie vamps, and I swear has a disturbing story for each king Europe's ever had – but no, I don't have any names yet... Can't seem to find anything that goes well with Black... I like the name Dawn myself, but Dawn Black just sounds like a dyslexic trying to say black dawn..."

Sam, being Sam, interrupted, "You weren't pregnant last week at The Elders-"

"Of course I was." Idiot. Did it look like someone could get this annoyingly round overnight? "I just didn't flaunt it, did I? though I'm surprised Mom and Billy didn't have a parade in the streets when we told them..." Sam, anger, and brains could never be said to mix...

This seemed to click with something in Emily's mind. "You fought in a war," she gaped at me, "while pregnant?"

"Er-"

"That's so... irresponsible of you, Leah!"

"Well, they tried sending me and Ness to Mumbai but I came back..."

"Leah Jacqueline Clearwater, why on earth would you do that?"

"'Cause," I said honestly. Why not, I figured. It's not like I was ashamed I'd come back, "I didn't see the point in living if everyone I loved ended up dead." And then, half-hearing Jake's response to my own proclamations of my name, "Oh, and it's Black."

"What is?" Emily said, looking towards the oven for a moment before turning back to me.

"My name... technically." I was looking right at Sam when I said it, one hand resting on my stomach. "We got the paperwork all done on New Year's Eve... we're just holding a ceremony now 'cause Mom and Billy want pictures, and Alice wants to buy tulle... It's a nightmare really. Like one moment, I'm just sitting in their manor, next thing you know I'm being attacked questions about three different shades of lilac and if I prefer mariachi bands or jazz music or like sequins over lace..." Sam's face, as I said this, went from confused to angry, then infuriated at the smallest reminder of his twenty-four hours in jail, then blanched in something I took to either be horror or humiliation before settling into something forcibly blank and not-quite-normal-colour. "But, anyway, that's why I'm here – to escape. Though there are some lovely treaty details I'd like to discuss with Sam if he's feeling in a business mood..."

"Oh, that'd be wonderful!" Now was the part where I seriously wondered what I'd gotten into renewing contact, or something, with my annoyingly perky, almost always happy, and devastatingly kind cousin. She was the kinda person who'd've collected every stray cat, dog, and platypus that wandered her way if Uncle Eric and Aunt Lisa had let her. She also had the tendency to send baskets of homemade muffins to people on every occasion – weddings, funerals, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, engagements, breaking of engagements, rumours of sniffles, and because it's Tuesday being the main ones – and make the best brownies on this side of the Mississippi. She was also the kind of person who pulled everyone she knew into her projects, be they cooking, can food drives, or her ill-fated quilting experiment. Granted, I actually did like Emily if you completely ignored the whole Sam thing, mostly because she was a master of the one-sided conversation, didn't expect much from me, and was completely immune to the usual long-term effects of me bitching at someone – which is to say, usually not ever crossing my path again. But there is only so much happiness I can take in a day, and Alice and Kate have already used up that quota. "Rachel and I were saying just the other day how much we missed having you around, and Kim was really starting to like you when the packs split... and you know the younger boys like worship you."

Weird. Very weird. But probably true. I am like amazing. "Yeah, and Mom and Billy have expressed very loudly how they'd like to see their grandchildren – which is to say, often. So, Sammy dearest, let's talk," I wrinkled my nose, "politics."

"I think you made your opinions very clear last week."

"Well then, call it terms of surrender. Whatever. Semantics don't matter."

He huffed. Ness could look scarier.

Emily, standing, headed for the door, giving the excuse, "I think I heard the washer beep," when she knew full well we werewolves would've heard it if it had, which we hadn't.

Once the door closed and we heard another door click down the hall, the taciturn idiot burst into speech, "We made an agreement back in September, remember? Your pack stays off the Rez, and ours stays away from the Cullens. We've done that, so why the hell can't you do the same?"

"Our parents are here, our families, our friends... and its our birthright as much as yours. 'Sides, you can't ask twelve-year-olds to live out in the woods to fight Evil while there's another pack that gets to stay at home, at least, when not at war."

He chose to ignore this last part. "You left."

"Into exile, sure, but we're back. The Cullens can't stay that much longer, anyway, and we always said that we'd reconsider the agreement of ours when they left."

"But they've not left yet."

"No."

"Does Jacob even know you're here?"

"I'm afraid you're confused: I'm carrying his children, not a child myself."

"So he doesn't even know-"

"So what?" I said angrily. "I am his wife. Alpha female. Queen of the Pack. Empress of the Rez... and I'd make a grab for something else too if I could get Kate to send me one of her crowns... Either way, I think that gives me more than the authority to discuss some way for us to get along."

"Sometimes I doubt you're a pack at all, just a bunch of kids who happen to live in the same place and have the same stupid ideas."

"Of course we're a pack, dickwad. There's me and Jake, and we're the Alphas, and then Quil's Beta and he watches over Judith and Zack, who're the Omegas, and then Embry and Seth kinda make up the middle. If you come to your senses, your pups can join ours and the rest of you can pile in with Emb-"

Even if he didn't say anything, you could almost see his hackles raise at the suggestion that he go from being the punitive Alpha of the La Push Pack to nothing but a lousy Gamma in a reconstituted gang... There was even a slight change in the scent of the room, his sea and salt and fire scent getting, if possible, even more pungent, though it and the similar-but-not-quite scents of the La Push wolves already impregnated everything within reach of my nose. Emily's wisteria perfume was nearly gone already, though she'd been here but moments before, and my own pine and earth and, yes, milky smell was just the smallest of combatants here. "You may act like a pack and have you're own little patrols and rank, but at the end of the day, you still get your kibble from the leeches, abandoning everything our ancestors and our tribe have stood for for time immemorial so you can- can frolic with the bloodsuckers and cast off everything that makes you Quileute!"

I snorted. "I think the thing that makes me a Quileute is my heritage. Dad was a Quileute, and his dad, and his parents, and his parents... The Rez is my home, whether I live there or not. It's in my blood – literally, in this case, but still. So what if we get along with the Cullens and their friends? - so did Ephraim Black and Older Quil and your great-grandfather, Levi. Does that make them not true Quileutes?"

"Our ancestors didn't cavort with them!"

Cavort? Immemorial? Sam must have borrowed Billy's dictionary. Didn't make him any smarter though. Mother-fucking turd-collecting ant-sampling idiot. "If you just got to know them... Sure, Ed-ward is a mind-raping jerk, and Bella's still Bella, and Alice is in need of Ritalin. Or Adderall. Probably both. But Kate's not so bad and Garrett's okay and even going the veggie route, and even Benjamin is decent to be around-"

"Can't you hear yourself?" I blinked. When had I supposedly gone deaf? "Okay? Decent? They kill people-!"

"Yes, yes, yes, I've heard that argument from you already. A thousand times probably, but you know I'd be the last one to like the leeches, and I do. The Cullens are decent, and Carlisle is probably a better person than most humans I know, and the Denalis are odd but harmless, and they're going to be in charge – well, them and the Irish and the Amazonians, but the later are mostly-veggie already, and the Cullens are eight-and-a-half, and Benjamin and Tia might join them permanently, and Garrett's going with the five Denalis when they leave, if they can ever get Irina out of the attic... But the point is, they may be a little out there, but they're mostly good folk, and okay, so Stefan and Vladimir were half-mad or something, but they've gone back to Europe and are probably raiding the Volturi's castle for treasure, and Heidi and Felix are still trying to decide what they're going to do... But they're just like people. Some are Hitler-evil and taken care of, and some are Princess-Di-good, and some are bitches like me or and others are assholes like you..."

"But they still kill people. And they'll kill more, be it on accident or to change more of them or because they're not decent," this he spat, standing up and clutching the back of the chair he'd vacated rather harder than it was probably intended to be held, "and how are we supposed to abide by that? Kill here on the peninsula or across the country or across the world, if we have the power to stop it-!"

"Power! Is that all you ever fucking think about? Power over your pack? Over La Push? Over me-?"

He was not the only thing that snapped then, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"'Oh Leah,'" I said, adopting a shrill affectation of his voice, "'let's do this tonight.' Or 'I want to go so-and-so,' or 'So I'll pick you up at seven for the dance-I-never-asked-you-to-but-assumed-you'd-agree-to-come-with-me-'cause-I'm-just-that-big-of-a-prick'-"

"Don't even begin to bring that up a-"

"I wasn't the one who fucking brought it up in the first place!"

"Me?You come into my house smelling like him-"

"God, you making this into another Alpha pissing contest? 'Cause Jake sure isn't playing, and I'm the hell not. Firstly, I'm not with you any more; I don't need to explain my actions to you. If you recall, you dumped me. You've no fucking right to talk that way to me," I raged, jumping up from my chair and feeling the anger burning, not just in me, but the twins. Not now, darlings; Mommy has some yelling to do 'fore the maiming begins. "Second, who're you to judge me? If you recall, I caught you making out with Em before you broke up with me, you porpoise-humping, ass-raping, cock-sucker, and Jake and I are not just together, but married, so if I want to have sex with him in a club or the leeches' car or wherever-the-fucking-else I might want to, it's my fucking choice-"

"Besides the fact you're menopausal-"

Holy maker of sliced bread, was that all he remembered me as: his bitchy, non-period-having, freak-of-nature ex? "Obviously not-"

"-I can't believe you were stupid enough to not use-"

"My own choice, Samuel-"

"-protection. Who knows what the irresponsible fool has been-"

"Jacob is not irresponsible! He's twenty times the Alpha you'll ever be-!"

"-doing in his-"

I stalked backwards a bit, reaching the counter and looking for something heavy to throw at him as I yelled back, "You may be the first of us, and the oldest, and maybe you know the most about the whole werewolf thing, but you were never the kind of person who could lead. Sure, you could force people to follow you, but they'd never do it willingly like the do for Jake. The pups love him. Seth like worships him. 'Cept for you and Paul and Jared, I can't think of anyone who hates him. And I can think of a lot of people who hate you, isolating them when they first changed-"

"For their own saf-"

"-not letting them tell their parents-"

"Secre-"

"Don't you wonder what Ms. Call must have thought of you? Keeping her boy out at all hours, doing who knows what, looking like you took a year's worth of steroids overnight? 'Cause it was probably something like, 'Just like his father-'"

"As big an-"

"Oh come on, Sam! You know Embry has to be your half-brother. Look at a family tree – all the direct male-line descendants of the last pack phased first, for some reason the descendants of Levi Uley first, maybe just 'cause you were older. And he's the most like you, looks more like you than he does Quil or Jake-"

"Th-"

"At least now she thinks her kid has a home somewhere, where he's fed and told to do his homework. What about John and Tim and Jimmy's parents? Huh? What have you told them? Wonder why no one's come after you with pitchforks-"

"Lee-"

"At least Jake told the Moras what their children were getting into. At least he let's us think for ourselves-"

"If-"

"And," I said, having found no suitable throwing-item and holding the counter top in a death grip instead, I went in for the kill, 'cause God fucking knows I tried. I think I did. Having one pack is the only way to make everyone happy, 'cause, as much as I hate to say it, hanging around the boys all the time can be tiring and I don't have the first clue how to care for a baby, let alone two, and I need my mother for that, and Quil missed being able to spend more time with Claire and Seth could use being back on the Rez more as a chance to ask Ruth out and Embry I knew was real close to his mom, or had been once, and would like to see her more, and I was tired of all the inter-pack stress 'cause it made the twins act up which made me act up, "just so you know, he beats you in the sack by like a factor of ten, so, I'm quite happy we broke up, 'cause God knows if I had to pretend to enjoy it for the rest my life I'd have to be a better actor than Rach-" And it was there I had to stop, because of the hand on my windpipe as it pushed me against the magnet-laden refrigerator.


	5. He

"There is a way to be of service to one's country without being a fool;  
there is a way to be of use without being used – without being a servant of old men, and their ideas."

Owen Meany in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany

* * *

His hands, however, did not stay there long, seeming to expect someone four, five inches shorter than I was, as I'd been before I started phasing. Realizing this, they travelled upwards, calloused hands moving with the certainty of possession, up my neck and to my face. He was coming still closer, his momentum pressing him unpleasantly close against me as I was pressed further against the fridge, mouth opening in shock, anger, and preparation for the longest string of French known to man or wolves.

"What the mother-fucking, ass-wiping, cunt-licking hell do you think you are fucking doing, duck-stealing, cow-jumping, shit-collecting dickhead?" might've been the start of it, but before so much as the first gasping word of protest could escape my lips, his were on them, tongue taking advantage of my open mouth, one hand doing an awful parody of cupping my face (too harsh, too heavy, too not his) while the other ran back down to my chest, touching places he'd no right to touch.

For one terrible, awful moment, I froze, trying to figure out what awful universe I'd fallen into and what demented god was ruling it. And then the fury was there, seeping into every cell all at once, putting me in a place past anger, past simple disgust, alighting every inch of me with fire such as I had not known before, so much so that I was surprised he didn't pull back at the sudden burning of my skin. And then my hands were moving up to his shoulders, the fury giving me strength beyond his own, and, grabbing the skin there roughly, I pushed him off me so hard he crashed into the table – and would have broke it if it wasn't such an old, sturdy thing. A growl emanated from my throat.

"What the fuck Uley!" I screamed, pausing my oncoming rant just long enough to spit and sputter out his terrible taste, too much salt and much too sour... Not at all like Jake, who was... But I was too angry at the moment to even remember what Jake tasted like, only that this was wrong and I hated it and I was going to castrate the fucking shit-headed monkey-raping koala-stomping dirt-bag with own leg bone here in a minute if he so much as looked at me again and God only knows what I'll do if he tries more than that. In the calmer place, hidden deep beneath the fury, a part of me says Emily can never know and somehow manages to take control of my voice, or at least it's level, so I was hissing the words so lowly a human could not have heard it.

But we were not human, and sometimes we forgot that. Sometimes the animal took over, and in this place was not Leah Clearwater Black and Sam Uley, but an Alpha female away from her back and a dominant male who, even in this hell-hole of salt and sea and sour musk, could smell the holly-like scent that I'd been gaining ever since the packs separated. "I don't know what the hamster-fucking hell is wrong with you, but get a grip on it," I said lowly, softly, an edge of command in it. "I am not yours. I will never be yours. And, all that time ago, when we were dating, I wasn't yours then either. You touch me again and I swear to God that they'll never find the pieces."

"It doesn't matter," he hisses just as low, voice ragged, "you can't be with him. He's wrong. He gave up the Alpha. He gave up his heritage. He protects bloodsuckers. You can't be with him. You just can't." He slowly found his way off the table and, dropping into a predatory crouch, bare feet making no sound against the linoleum though the cups from earlier had been strewn across it in many tiny pieces, the liquid inside now cold and running in rivulets along the dips in the floor, made his way towards me.

I circled away, keeping the table between us, angling for the door, wanting to get out of here. Sam? Making a pass at me? While I was pregnant? Emily staying in her room, though she must have heard the crashes? Me, being here in the first place, trying to be nice? God, what was the world coming too? What was La Push coming to?

La Push, the homeland, the heartland, the place where I was born and where I will die and in whose soil I will be buried, the place from which I had sought to leave for so long and the place to which I was at last returning. The land of our heart, in which mystery and magic still play beneath the cloaking veil of mist that hangs over our peninsula and clears way only to reveal the shadowed sky, so vibrant and alive with stars and the moon, the mother, who turns her light every which way, looking for us, her children lost to the night. The land of our blood that knew us before Q'wati went to the wolves and made them men, that knows us as wolves again, where there is much life and much hope, much suffering and much pain that can never be shared, not with anyone, because what is real here is but a dream elsewhere, and elsewhere they do not have the sight of the sea crashing endlessly against the cliffs, or the comfort of the trees that grow tall and deep and shelter us in their embrace, or the safety of the clouds that blanket the land and kept the ever-watching eyes blind to us and our people.

The land of our ancestors. The land that was Dad's and Grandpa Aaron's and Great-Grandma Abigail's and Oldest Quil's before it ever was mine, whose flesh is now the soil. The land that Ephraim Black made safe for us, as did his son, and his, and as Jacob is doing now and one day our children will... And into this land I give my flesh, to be my children's soil, and my children will give theirs, to nurture my grandchildren. The Land of Lands, La Push.

Now, though, it was wrong, and the stars do not shine as brightly on us, for they know that the two packs cannot last any longer. We must be one again, so that all will be happy, and all will be well, and children can know their parents, and parents may hold their children's children, and the stars may shine again upon the homeland, the heartland, the place where I was born and where I will die and in whose soil I will be buried.

Things had gotten out of control. There were too many vampires. They had been here for too long.

If Jake had taken the mantle of his forebears from the beginning, when we were one small pack and were, mostly, a family – of second and third and fourth cousins, of brothers, - then maybe... Or if he'd stolen it back when the idea of killing Nessie was first brought up, right before the split, then maybe, just maybe...

But we are who we are. I am a bitch and Sam is a pig walking on two legs and Jake is the Alpha-in-the-rough who just needed time...

...And we are what is primal within us. We are wolves in human clothing, and this is not about the Leah-and-Sam that once was, when we were both human, I see that now, in his stance, in his words. Sam loves Emily. I honestly think he just wants what's best for me in an overprotective, prudish, idiot-brotherly way.

But he was not Sam and I was not Leah.

I growled at him, baring teeth and crouching as low as I could manage. I have a mate already, stray, it said, and you cannot overpower him. Run along before you kill yourself fighting.

His returning snarl was from somewhere in him farther gone. It made me think, "Me Tarzan, you Jane," only with that R-rated connotation Disney leaves out of their movies.

It also made me back for the door, feet moving slowly, my own footsteps not so soft as his as I fought to keep my awkward balance. I was going to kill him! I was going to fucking tear off one of his God-be-damned, flea-bitten, cow-humping legs, pull out one of the tinnier bones, and use that to saw off his nearly-non-existent, hypocritical, cheating balls. Then I was going to take them, shove them down his throat till he choked on them, and then show him the true meaning of cruel and unusual punishment – but not today. I was half as big as a whale and dressed as an elf in a horror flick today. It was one thing to fight the Volturi while I was still feeling somewhat mobile, but it's another thing entirely to get into a maiming session with your ex when you don't have to, especially when said ex seems to have no problem breaking personal boundary rules. The twins wanted to rip him a new one and I quite agreed with them, but I could never live with myself if I let them get hurt like this. I'd honestly come here to just talk to Em and annoy Sam. I wasn't looking for baby showers or sexual assaults.

What do you think, cubs? Should Mommy stay and fight, or should she go out and get mouthwash and come back to fight another day – with pointy things? They ceased their kicking for a moment, and I took that as "Mouthwash, Mommy, please," which was good because if I didn't find some soon I might have to burn my tongue... which would probably heal in a day or two, and then I'd have to do it all over again every week or so for the rest of my life, and that would be just a terrible hassle...

Sam managed words now, trying to straighten up, but seeming like a man possessed, unable to control all of his movements. Like the main characters in a movie I'd seen where aliens were trying to mind control everyone – the ones trying to fight it, that is; the ones who didn't looked like zombies. "I- I don't know why but- but you just can't," he tried to force himself to stand upright, but failed entirely and settled for crouching by the chair he'd broken earlier. "Things – they don't make sense when you're around. I- I love Emily. But-" he put a hand to his forehead, pressing hard, and I could feel the doorknob behind me, trying to turn it without turning around, "but whenever you're around the world- You smell like- Can't stop the things I-" The door clicked, and I tugged it open, trying to get a space long enough for me to dash through. "The thought of you- you with Jake – makes me-"

The door was open; I didn't wait to hear what he said. I just ran out of there, pulling the door shut after me and jumping into the Audi. The gas station by the old church, that was where I had to go. Mouthwash. Lots and lots of mouthwash. And mints. And possibly some sulphuric acid.

I slammed on the gas, turning around in the drive so fast that, when I saw Jared running towards the house from the corner of my eye, by the time I turned around both he and the house were out of sight. I was at the gas station in no time flat and, nearly using werewolf speed, I ran into the place, found a bottle of Listerine, and opened it in the aisle, glaring at Andrea McCauley, the attendant who'd been working in this place since we were in high school.

"You know, if you're looking for a hit," the girl said picking at her fingernails, "A beer costs only eighty-nine sense more."

I guzzled the bottle, threw it over some shelves into the trash, and grabbed the four other bottles on the shelf. On my way to the register I picked up the entire display of TicTacs and deposited these on the counter before going back, grabbing a good amount of gum, and adding it to the pile, daring Andrea to say something as I pulled the top off a box of the mints and pouring the whole container into my mouth as I simultaneously pulled out "my" credit card from my back pocket.

"Fifty-two fifty,"she said, swiping the card. "You want a bag, or you going to eat it all here?"

"Ha ha, very funny." I'd like to see her deal with her creepy ex sticking his tongue down her throat while his fiancé was in the next room, when all she wanted to do was mock him for a bit and find some kind of solution for the two packs problem. I mean, really.

Really.

We weren't the animals we could become. It didn't have to be like this. We could be civil to each other. We could be that family of brothers (and sisters) again, or at least be whatever cousins and second and third and further cousins were to each other when they weren't feuding and fighting wars, however much I doubted that was possible from every story Kate had ever told me of the long-dead royal courts. We could live in proper houses, at least, thought the rock was almost home. And things could be as they were always supposed to be. With Jake in charge and the pups looked after and Sam knocked down from his I-am-Alpha-hear-me-roar perch...

And even as I gathered my bags of things and went to sit on the hood of the Audi, wondering why I'd come back to the Rez in the first place, I wondered how I could have ever stayed so long away.


	6. Vav

Everything we do is a choice. Oatmeal or cereal, highway or side streets,  
kiss her or keep her, we make choices and we live with the consequences.  
If someone gets hurt along the way we ask for forgivingness, it's the best anyone can do."

The Piemaker in Pushing Daisies' "The Fun in Funeral"

* * *

I'm dreaming again.

I know I had to be, because a part of me was cognizant that I was still dozing in the back seat of the Audi in the Rez school parking lot, listening to waves crash on the beach I am just feet from and the voices of those bustling about the diner next door. I know he is still in class and that he doesn't even know I'm here, but it is a good dream.

The sun has managed to break through the rain this afternoon, and the warmth of it on my face is like his hands, so warm and gentle and perfect, though not quite as perfect as him. "Hello," I imagined him saying softly, climbing gracefully into the back of a car that no two werewolves were meant to inhabit. Of course, this would mean that he'd have to be half atop of me, but I didn't mind. I liked the place where this met his body would have to rest, between my legs and the weight of him there.

"Hello to you too," I'd whisper if he were here, and the presence of him really just inches above me, his knees a positioned just so, one arm holding his weight just above my shoulder, the other reaching up to cup my face. But he is not, so I close my eyes more tightly and imagine, if only to keep myself from going mad, sitting here, waiting, trying to tell myself that school is important and I should not set a precedent of dragging him into broom closets when he should be in class. Then the pups would want to be allowed to skip class – for other reasons I hoped – and then where would any of them be? Exactly.

"I didn't expect to find you here."

"I didn't think you'd mind."

"What's wrong, Lee?" he'd ask, his free hand suddenly leaving my face and going to my belly. "Is it the twins?" The twins would move towards his hand as best they could, as they always did, and start fighting to be nearest. The twins loved fighting, no matter what the excuse. I could only think of what they'd be like when they were older and shudder...

"No, they're fine."

"Then what," he'd say, brushing his lips against mine with his final words, his breath so hot and humid and perfect that they were just Jacob, "did Kate do to you today?"

"I've had a bad day. Make me forget it, please."

"Anything," he would say around a deep kiss, "for my Alpha female."

I imagined his hands on me, going under these stupid clothes and doing things that set me alight with pleasure, and his mouth trailing kisses until...

...until I couldn't pretend any more, and I had to acknowledge it was a dream... and that Jake was still in school, and I was still in the parking lot, and the sun had given away to rain again.

I just don't get life sometimes. I bet Ephraim fucking Black never had to deal with this sort of drama. It must have been nice having just three people in that pack... but you know what they say: three people can keep a secret – if two of them are dead. Stupid Cullens. I blame them.

I mean, when the Cullens had moved to Forks the first time I could understand how they could not know the tribe nearby would become wolves because of them. But why had they come back, knowing this, knowing they were so many more than before? I know they had stayed for Charlie's sake, and I could understand that – I was even happy about that, because it was God-damn unfair to let a bitch like Bella ruin her father's life, again, and Ness deserved to know her grandfather. But why had they come back in the first place, when they'd left to keep her safe from them? Why had she chosen to become a vampire when-

-when it meant that she could never walk out in to the sun again, and feel its loving embrace, and imagine it was her lover's hand caressing her while he was away, not at least where anyone could see her, or might come across her, or close enough for her to smell? How could you live forever without that warmth? Would it even warm her icy skin any more?

-when it meant that she could never eat again, not anything but blood, stolen from other beings, say a deer a week, for the rest of eternity? How many animals was that over the centuries? Would she even care? No doubt she would – she struck me the kind of person who wouldn't harm the fly, or rabid dog, or ravenous vampire who bit her, - so how could she "live" with the pain of it?

-when it meant that she could never dream again, like I had been just a moment ago, or like I sometimes did of aliens and jello and multicoloured wolves and clairvoyant watermelons?

-when it meant that she would have to watch Charlie die, and her mother, and all the friends she'd had at her school, and all her friends' children, and possibly even Nessie, for all we knew, for Nahuel only knew that his oldest half-sister, Gabriela (who Kate, knowing all the gossip, said was also called U'Yara in her native language, The Lady of the Water), was only two hundred fifty or so? Maybe vampire-human hybrids could live for three, four hundred years and then suddenly died – could Bella live with herself if that was so?

-when it meant that more of us would phase, loosing something of our humanity that she'd willingly given up?

I could understand how it was easy for us to get drawn into the animal within, and how it was such a relief to be able to hide from our human problems in a world where politics didn't mater, nor jobs, nor school, nor anything but the pack. But why, how had we let it get this far, to the point where Sam was behaving like a dominate male, and he and Jake had gotten into more and worse clashes than they ever had when we were all still one pack, and apparently so I had a role in it, somehow, being the sexy Alpha female I was (I took a moment here to think on how wonderful I was, and then I remembered that one of my pups, my oldest pup, was dead and in the ground and his flesh would be the soil for other peoples' children, and it was all I could do not to cry)? Why did Matty have to die? How could the leeches sit in their library, discussing politics and ways to Pinky and the Brain the world – no, that was wrong, they'd already "taken" it over, they were just trying to figure out what to do with it now – when a little boy was dead, a poor boy who wasn't even fourteen yet and had died for no reason other than a stupid log and too strong a heart?

Pregnancy had obviously turned me into a romantic. Next thing you know I'm going to be listening to Celine Dion and Frank Sinatra without shame. Here I was, asking questions that wiser folk than me had yet to answer, and, for the life of me, I didn't know how we are supposed to hope for that happily ever after that Disney promises us when children can die and magic refuses to be purely beautiful...

Damn you, Disney. Damn you and your singing teapots and your "princesses." Why do you lie to us, persist in telling us youth is happy, that the world is good, and that all things are possible for those willing to believe? Do you like seeing our pain so much? You rat bastards, you fucking pieces of donkey shit, how many lives have you let be ruined when those children you lied to learned the truth? How can you live with yourselves?

How can any of us live at all?

I come home in the morning light  
My bother says, 'When you gonna live your life right?'

my phone sang. Without moving or opening my eyes, I felt along the car floor for the phone that I'd dropped between the passenger seat and the back.

Oh mother dear, we're not the fortunate ones  
And girly, they want to have fun  
Oh girls just want to have fun

Finding it, I quickly hit the talk button I'd memorized the position of long ago, and said into the phone, "Look, Kate, I don't know how you manage to change the ringtone on my phone every three seconds, but I'm kinda having an existential crisis, so, no, I don't want to have a 90210 marathon with you, be taken shopping for antique lace tablecloths in Paris, or hear you tell me how much you like the name Katrina for one of the twins, so if you wouldn't mind-"

"Aunt Leah!" came the voice, rough and sounding of tears. Immediately my stomach clenched, not knowing what it was I feared, only that I did not like it, not the least, and it was bad. Terrible. Death. Nothing good, nothing safe."You've got to come and pick me up. I was at lunch and overheard Ricky Miller saying that it Matty's own fault that he died – the Rez thinks he di-died in a four-wheeler accident, remember – and I just got so angry and I kinda broke his arm and now they suspended me for the rest the week-"

"Whoa, Judy," I said, trying to maintain my balance after bolting upright and opening my eyes, momentarily seeing spots dance in front of them and feeling even after they passed like my breakfast was going to come up in waves, "stop, rewind, and freeze for a second." I leaned forward as best I could, fiddled with the door pull, and threw the car door. Now only to manage to climb out without causing myself great bodily harm...

Forget romantic, I'd turned into Bella freaking two-left-feet Swan with pregnancy. Never again, I swear it. I will go on every pill in existence and steal enough money from the Cullens to buy Trojan if necessary to keep this unduly complicated development from happening again. Or ask Carlisle to find a way to do the whole sea horse thing on Jake, so he could deal with it.

"Ricky Miller was being-"

"I got that part- ha," I added, managing to clamber out of the car without injury, then grabbing the keys from the the front and heading towards the office, "It's the suspension part I don't get."

"Oh, that," she said rather more flatly, which I suppose was better than sounding like she was going to cry on me – I did not do well with crying - "Well, the principal told me to go and get Dad and I went and got Jake instead, and Mr. Jones was all, 'Blah, blah, your brainwashing is killing people Jacob Black,' and then I was kinda, 'If being a decent person these days counts as brainwashing, than I can see why your wife divorced you,' and then it was the suspension."

I almost walked into the school doors I was trying so hard not to laugh. "You've been spending a little too much time around me, cub." The Rez school, for all it held grades K-12, was small, and I had been to the office many, many, many times in my day.

"That's what Jake said. And then Jake said something about how Mr. Jones had no right to- Leah!" Judy said, dropping the phone as I walked into the office, not bothering to put it back on the hook. Running up to me, she buried her head in my shirt and asked how I'd gotten there so fast. At least, that's what I thought she said – it was hard to make out her words, muffled as they were in my stupid let's-dress-the-Indian-girl-up-as-a-elfin-vampire-slayer-just-to-piss-her-off clothes.

"I was dozing in the parking lot."

"Why?"

"'Cause Kate wanted to paint my toenails and Sam Uley is a rat-ass bastard," I glared at the receptionist, who'd gasped at my use of "language". She should've known better than to be surprised by now, really. "Jake still in there with the principal?"

"Yeah. I think he's getting chewed out for calling," Judy looked quickly at the receptionist, then back towards me, "Mr. Jones a 'fascist dictatorial pig who wouldn't know the first thing about the real world if it jumped up and bit him in the face.'"

"God, I've corrupted you all." I considered for a second saving Jake from his torment, then decided against it. He was a big boy and had to fight his own wars. 'Sides, if I saved him now, that'd just give him that much more energy for beating up Sam for kissing (gross) me, which should probably at least wait until I've had a chance to explain to him what (I think) was happening. "Come on, I'm starving."

Half hour and two appetizers later, Judith was staring at me from across the table at the diner. Her gold-flecked eyes were still bloodshot, a permanent feature, I was now sure, and staring intently on the bottle of ketchup – like she wasn't seeing it, but something beyond. I wondered what to say. What could you say, when child you'd both known and loved was dead and nothing you could do could bring him back?

"Aunt Leah?" she asked suddenly.

"Uh-huh?" I was busy staring at the mustard at this time, in part because I didn't know what to say, and in part because I was drying to remember enough Chem to figure out what the fuck methylchloroisothiazolione was and why it might be in my food.

"Why is it like this?"

I looked up. "Why is what like this?" I looked around the diner, half expecting there to be some sort of weird St. Patrick's Day decorations up already, found none, and shot a dirty look at a couple of the towns more hardcore gossips before turning back to the girl.

She took a breath, gathering her thoughts, and brushed a lock of hair that had come out of her braid from her face, "It's like... before I wasn't great friends with John or Jim or Timmy, but ever since we've been getting into arguments over the most stupid things – Zack and I were in English with John the other day and we were reading some weird play in class and I swear he and Zack almost got into a shouting argument over something in it; I can't even remember what now, it was so stupid. And we find ourselves almost growling at each other in the halls – at Colin and Brady too, and I don't even know them.

"And I don't know why I got so angry at Ricky Miller. I mean, it was terrible and mean but Zack was holding me back and I pulled away from him to beat up Ricky, and I might really have hurt him if Zack hadn't managed to stop me – well, Timmy too, he pulled Ricky away, but still – and it's like I don't know why I got so angry and...

"And I've been thinking about imprinting. And I think to myself, I've liked Zack since we were in kindergarten and he shared his cupcake with me when Mike Carter stole my snack, and it was like, 'I'm going to be with this guy forever,' one of those cheesy moments from TV where everything just clicks, you know? I'm pretty sure he likes me too, that way, though I can't be certain, 'cause every time anyone's thoughts go so much as anywhere near that direction he starts thinking about baseball, and doesn't know a thing about it so- well, you know; you've heard him. And I can't help but think, 'I love Zachary Clearwater and I want to marry him one day,' even though I know we're just in middle school and I don't even know if he likes me back. But what if I can't ever get the chance to find out if he likes me back? What if he goes off and imprints? What if I imprint? Will all the love I have for Zack just go away, like it never existed? Would that make it nothing? Or would I forever have these feelings bottled up inside me that I can't act upon?

"And then I think about Matty, and how I'm never going to see him again, and feel so stupid for worrying about myself, but it's like, 'Here I am, sitting around, worrying about if I'm ever going to get my happy ending, and Matty doesn't get one. Matty doesn't get to fall in love or get married or become a teacher, like he wanted, because Matty's dead.' My big brother's dead and all I can seem to worry about is if Zack likes me likes me and how much just being around the other pack is like torture and...

"And the other day I'd run into my room when Mom was crying on and on about how the pack thing would end up killing me too, and she told me I couldn't go back. I wasn't allowed to phase any more – that's what she said – and I actually yelled back at her, 'You're not my mother.' I said that to my own Mom... But it's true... I love my parents, and they're great, but you and Jake... you're something more than they are to me. You and all the pack..."

We sat in silence for a while longer, and our food came, but neither of us touched it.

"I went to Emily's today. Apparently Alice sent out the invitations."

"I thought you hated Emily."

"I thought I did too."

"Then why'd you go, Aunt Leah?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Sam showed up."

"Did you fight?"

"Sorta."

"Sort of?"

I moved a fry around my plate idly, hungry but unable to eat – the same fear I'd felt when Judy'd called me earlier swirling in my stomach, but for different reasons, for frightened reasons, though I don't know what I was afraid of: the bad vampires are gone, the world is still turning, I'm married to a man I love and having his children. There was no reason for me to be afraid. But I was, and I think Judy was too, 'cause both of us just stared at our food and didn't look at each other. Or, at least, I didn't look at her. Maybe she was looking at me. I dunno. But it was like... How could I be a more important figure in this girl's life than her own mom, especially when I'd only known her what? Two, three months? I didn't disbelieve it, and that fact more than anything stirred the worry inside of me. I'd've been happier with an enemy I could see, I could fight...

I had met the enemy, and it was us.

"I think it's more complicated then we think."

"What? How can a fight be complicated?"

"Sam kissed me."

"What!"

"Keep it down, Judy," I hissed.

"Sorry, Aunt Leah. He what?"

"You heard me."

"But why?"

"I think- I think because he couldn't help himself."

"But he imprinted on your cousin."

"Tell me about it."

"It's not going to be easy, is it?"

"What's not going to be easy?"

"Life in general. The packs in particular. We're not going to be able to go on like this for much longer."

"No we're not."

"It's going to end badly, isn't it."

"Probably."

Smally, "Are more people going to die?"

"I don't know."


	7. Zayin

"Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping...waiting...and though unwanted...unbidden...it will stir...  
open it's jaws, and howl. It speaks to us...guides us. Passion rules us all.  
And we obey. What other choice do we have?"

Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Passion

* * *

"Oh, poor baby."

"Don't you 'poor baby' me, Ekaternia Dobryninva."

"I've seen Esau: he's ugly and a jerk and smells disgusting. I'll 'poor baby' you all I want... Galahad, run downstairs and get like another case of soap... she's going to need it, she's been in there so long."

"I need more mouthwash. And mints. And maybe a new tongue. Fuck, if he just bothered to bathe every now and then I wouldn't be having this monkey-fucking problem." I was halfway to the point of phasing at biting off my own tongue, his stupid wrong scent was bothering me so much.

"Scratch that, dear," Kate said, turning away from the locked door, "go tell Alice to buy up Ferrero SpA and have them send over a case of their finest."

"Alcohol isn't going to solve this, Kate. Nothing can solve this." Short of killing Sam Uley, but that was the kind of thing I was trying to keep from thinking, no matter how pleasant an idea it might be. Stupid Sam. Stupid boys who want to kiss you want you don't want them to. Stupid werewolves that won't give into reason and have to have I'm-the-best-Alpha pissing contests. I hate pissing contests, mostly because I end up either, a) the one pissed upon or, b) the one who has to clean them up. Point in case: the La Push Pack coming to tear Nessie limb from limb, resulting in Sam trying to kill me. And, in case anyone's forgotten, the time he, on his lonesome, tried to tear Nessie limb from limb... resulting in, what do you know, Sam trying to kill me again. Now that I think about it, though, I'd rather be in a fight for my life then have my tongue assaulted again. I need steel wool...

"Firstly, melodramatic much? Second, Ferrero SpA isn't a distillery, they're a confectionery. They make that candy that sounds like that game... Connect Four? No... Tic Tac Toe. Yes, that's it, they make Tic Tac Toes."

"TicTacs," I heard Nessie correct the older vampire. "And you must come out soon, Aunt Leah. Daddy says that the water heater is large, but will not have much hot water left after you've been in the shower for two hours already."

"Vampires can have the best of everything," I shouted from within said shower to the leech (and half-leech) on the other side of the door, taking a short break from the frantic scrubbing that was leaving my skin raw and instead injecting most the contents of a tube of toothpaste into my mouth, so that my next words sounded rather muffled, "'o aye doughn't oo aff a bedder oughter eadder?"

"Well," came a new voice, and a rather dry one at that, "we've never put it to the test you are."

"I thought Daddy said something about Uncle Emmett and Uncle Jasper trying to recreate the Battle of Trafalgar in the bathtub once."

Rose snorted, "Didn't need hot water for that, though, Renesmee darling. Edward conveniently left out the part where he was playing Frederico Gravina y Nápoli in all of this, didn't he?"

"Of course. But Daddy is Daddy, so I let him believe I think him perfect."

I heard Kate snort, but restrain herself from saying anything else. "Your cub out here is beginning to think you've drowned."

"I haven't," I snorted, reaching a hand into the case of shampoo I'd pulled from the bathroom closet (I'd been around Alice long enough not to be surprised by the amount of, usually unneeded, personal hygiene projects the vampires had) before starting this frantic bathing, I grabbed another bottle and, without preliminary, upended it on my hair. It was only going to be a thousand times worse when I phased, and the more I washed, the more pissed I was getting that the smell wasn't going away, the more it got harder not to phase and murder someone... Anyone will do. "God, its not coming off."

"Did the bitch walk under a paint truck?"

"Esau kissed her, Aunt Rose."

"Esau? Did another of them phase on us?"

"Esau is Cousin Kate's name for Sam."

"And you couldn't have just said that because?"

"'Cause, Rosie dearest," Kate said, "Esau gives us all the fun biblical references we can make... Esau and Jacob were twins, in Genesis. According to the French Talmud commentator Rashi, the people said, 'Laban has two daughters and his sister, Rebecca, has two sons. The older daughter' – id est, Leah - ' will marry the older son' – Esau, – 'and the younger daughter' – Rachel – 'will marry the younger son' – Jacob. And then he goes on to say something about how Leah – the biblical one – cried and prayed to God to change her destined mate – which explains why the Torah introduces her as having 'tender' eyes and her name is Leah, from le'a, which is 'weary' in Hebrew – which God does and allows that Leah to marry that Jacob before her sister Rachel does..."

I've decided to kill Kate as soon as I phase. That'll make for a nice change of pace around the Cullen estate. No more random movie marathons (this weekend it was, in no particular order, Black Hawk Down, all three of each Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, Troy, and Kingdom of Heaven, because, I believe the reasoning was – believe, because I'd fallen asleep on a couch the night before and woke up halfway through Fellowship of the Ring, and missed her reasoning – she had a thing for Orlando Bloom. Or maybe Maggie did and Kate was humouring her... I wasn't quite sure), no more hours spent arguing with her about how I'd no inclination to name my daughter (if one of the twins was a girl) Caitlin, Katharine, or Katrina; and, most happily, no more mornings waking up with blue and pink toenails. Oh, the peace and quiet I will finally have...

"Uncle Jake's sisters are named Rebecca and Rachel."

Audibly pouting, "Okay, so the reference doesn't hold up to well beyond that, but as for the whole Sam-Leah-Jake triangle thing, it works well."

"So why the mutt kiss her?" Rosalie asked. God, did I have the entire female community of vampires waiting for me outside the bathroom? Thank God Ness at least made sure Kate respected the sanctity of the locked door, otherwise I knew she'd be in here, sitting crossed-legged on the floor and telling me how awful this all is and how there's a biblical equivalent and watching Dirty Dancing or Beauty and the Beast will help me get over it. I can't believe Disney has gotten to her too...

"Judy thinks that Aunt Leah thinks that the packs are going feral on us."

"Well," said Rose, voice fading slightly as she walked away, "as long as they stay house-trained..."

"You know," Kate said a moment later, completely out of the blue, "I really hated the 1920s. The flapper look did nothing for me. Irina loved it – 'cause of Juana la Loca, as I've said – but I miss the Elizabethan era. The clothing did wonders for my figure..." I heard her sigh. "If you don't come out soon, I'm going to make you come to the Renaissance Fair in Portland with me."

"You'll make me go anyway." Stupid shower, the water was starting to get colder. Okay, so maybe only the steam felt hot – I remembered that much from Chem, anyway – compared to my boiling blood, but still. Vampires. Rich. Can't they afford a water heater that'll take some use? Hell, can't they afford better entertainment then me? Terrible gossips, all of them. And Jasper with his Dr. Phil issues...

"True. But I'll make you dress up."

"You'll do that too."

"I'll make you dress as a peasant."

"Their clothes look more comfortable anyway."

"Fine then, I'll dress you up as a fine lady. Hell, I'll even run home and bring down one of my old outfits... I have this wonderful costume from 1615, 1616 or so that I've kept with this most wonderful, rich, Egyptian Blue velvet gown and Belgian lace frontispiece with matching escoffion..."

"I'm the size of a house; you wouldn't dare ruin a piece of antiquity like that."

"Maybe not, but if there's one thing I've learned how to do in a thousand years, it's sew, and give me some fabric and I'll have you in an authent-" She suddenly stopped, and then then were a pounding on the door.

Before he even spoke, I knew who it was. Was it time for them to be back from school already? Hmm... I looked on the floor of the shower, seeing a dozen or so empty plastic bottles there. Yeah, it probably was, but I'd not figured out what I was going to say yet. Who'd told him I was up here, anyway? I was going to- "Leah?"

"Go away, Jake."

"Er, why?"

"Because." Because I didn't want WWIII, that's why.

I heard him ask Kate if I was going OCD on him. "No," she said in her most annoying of ways, "Esau kissed her."

"Kate!" I swore loudly, jumping out of the shower and making for the door, while I heard Jake release some of the more traditional curses on the other side of it. Not having time to look for a towel, I flung open the door, grabbed Jake as he spun towards the stairs, most defiantly to go and kill my ex, and pulled him inside, slamming the door back shut behind me. Stupid vampire. Couldn't leave well enough alone. Or my toenails.

I turned on Jake, who seemed to be oscillating between anger (at Sam, I hoped, 'cause I knew from experience that look on me was a sign of oncoming badness, and I was just to tired from arguing with vampires for two hours about my rights to use their hot water and I really didn't want to argue with my own husband about whether or not it was a good idea for him to murder Sam Uley in front of his fiancée) and surprise (probably because people generally don't pull other people, while naked, into bathrooms, giving a floor show to their thousand-year-old friend and a five-month-old who looked as if she was a power of ten older than that), and said as clearly as I could, "Now, it's not what you think," while climbing back under the not-so-hot water.

Rage seemed to be winning, though, from the way his voice went deep and Alpha-y. I'm sad to say it, rather than making me worry more about the whole oh-my-mother-fucking-God-in-pink-a-Speedo,-the-Quileute-werewolves-are-going-feral-(i.e.-loosing-our-hamster-humping-humanity-and-will-probably-revert-fully-back-into-wolves-of-we-keep-this-up,-though-I've-not-the-slightest-piece-of-a-flying-fuck-of-an-idea-how-to-fucking-stop-it) thing, I found it rather hot. I took it as another sign none of us were going to come out of this alive, or, at least, human. "He didn't sexually assault you?"

That gave me pause for a moment, and I looked up from where I was trying to gather the empty bottles from the shower floor, so could at least stand without risking killing myself on slippery bottles. His dark eyes were fierce, pools of pure emotion that overwhelmed and actually did make me slip and land awkwardly, embarrassed but unharmed. I don't know how to explain it... not properly, anyway. But you know what I was talking about earlier, about there being a line between the human in us and the wolf? I'd never seen a human's eyes so deeply expressive as I saw his then.

It could've been my imagination. It probably was, what with all the insanity from the last couple of weeks and the hormones writhing like madmen within me, but... but you weren't there. You didn't see those eyes, which weren't human eyes, that weren't just asking if I was okay, if Sam had hurt me, and if I wanted to participate in the murder of our ex-Alpha, but were something else as well, something that knew how wrong I smelt to myself, how wrong a taste lingered in my mouth; something that went beyond the fact that Jake knew I could take care of myself, or others, or was mother-figure to two impressionable young pups, or going to be a mother one day soon myself, however odd that was to even think about. "Well..." I said slowly, licking my suddenly dry lips.

And that was all it took. Shower still running, half-a-dozen plastic bottles on the tile floor, and his school clothes still on, Jake crossed the space between us in a single step, his lips hard and persistent as they met mine. Hands, rough with desperation, pulled my body up to his as he somehow managed to be suddenly at my eye level, his already sodden clothing a strange and teasing feel against my skin. Insistent and incessant, it felt like he was touching every part of me at once – mouth, breasts, legs – as we struggled together to rid himself of his clothing, barely breaking contact as we worked.

Though we weren't wolves, not then, I swear by every god ever created, we could hear each other's thoughts, and as he was saying, I won't ever let him hurt you again, I saying back how much I needed to feel him and needed him to touch me in words that weren't words so much unquantifiable needs, and he responded not just with a hand here and his mouth so warm and hot there and while it wasn't sex it was something more – mutually marking each other with the, proper, scent? I don't know. Don't care, either, it was too perfect – and I don't know how long we were like that, Jake far from disgusted with my ballooning body (as some others would have been, I imagined, cough, cough) and the water going cold on us and the plastic bottles still on the shower floor getting in the way and Jake's every move seeming to impress upon me the strange sort of part-possessive, part-undeniable, all-encompassing love he somehow managed to have for me. I didn't know why he loved me, I was such a bitch and was always rude and truculent, – and, gods, I was spending entirely too much time around the leeches – only that he did.

And, sadly enough, sometime during this, I managed to fall asleep, so tired was I and melted from his touch. When I woke, I discovered I'd somehow phased in my sleep, and was curled near the middle of a furniture-less room with beige shag carpets and three tall windows open to the cool night and the lightly falling snow. There was moonlight pouring into the room, and but I didn't need it to see Judy, as a human, curled up in the far corner, crying.

...asked her out at last, man, the others were saying to each other, just dim enough for me to ignore if I didn't pay it too much attention.

Where you going to take her?

Emmett already said I could take the Audi, so I was thinking I could take Ruth to the movies in Port Angeles. They should have something good out...

It hurt to see her so sad, not just because she was my friend, but because she was one of my pups, and if it wasn't for me her brother wouldn't be dead and, presumably, she wouldn't be so sad.

With creaking joints, I pulled myself to my paws, the poof of my stomach making me look like a particularly plump, or, perhaps, water-retaining wolf, and padded over to her. Nudging her slightly with my muzzle, she uncurled and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing into my shoulders. She didn't say anything, and didn't need to, and eventually she fell asleep.

I was awake now, though, and with super-wolf-hearing, the sounds of Kate begging her sister, Irina, who'd not left the attic since the battle with the Volturi, to come down, if only for a minute, if only to feed, drifting from upstairs, while below, the house strangely silent otherwise, I heard Jake's voice, and with it Jasper's and Edward's. They were preparing. It made me cold to hear it, because it wasn't more annoying wedding plans or names for babies they were thinking of. No. It was another war they were preparing for.


	8. Kheth

"It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the  
young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been  
instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.  
It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by necessity of selection,  
and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness,  
prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all  
they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail into the body on the cross of life."

W. Somerset Maugham Of Human Bondage

* * *

It seemed to me that every step we took farther from the destruction of the Volturi and Matty's untimely death, the worse Judith got.

The worse all of us got, for Jake seemed to have gotten it into his head (with, I must point out, Jasper and Edward's help, though why he listened to either of the blood-whores, I'm not sure, though it probably had something to do with the fact that, even without phasing, it was rather evident to those of us who knew him well that he wanted to reunite the packs now in possibly the bloodiest of all possible ways) that anybody who stuck their tongue in my mouth without me wanting it there was undeserving of their own pack as, in all likelihood, he was going to do something that inevitability caused one of them to get hurt or, at least, emotionally scarred. And Quil, seeming think this would somehow lead the La Push Pack to, again, somehow (I wasn't too clear on the logic here, if there was any) retaliating against us by doing something to Claire, had been involved in three separate skirmishes on the border near my cousin's house, though, thank God, they had all occurred when Jared was the one doing their patrol and Sam's Beta, at least, seemed to understand Quil's need to make sure his imprint was safe and had done little more than snap at him every time he tried to cross the border. Embry was okay, considering, as was Zack, but then there was Seth...

Curled up in my chosen corner of the furniture-less room the Cullens had taken to forcing me to sleep in lately, (largely so Kate could annoy me without using up cell minutes, or so I thought), with Judy tossing fitfully in her sleep next to me, I glared at my brother. Who are you and what have you done with Seth?

As he'd come into the room human, tossed his bookbag to the ground human, and, on the whole, was being very human as he pulled out his chemistry homework and was muttering to himself things like "12.358 moles" and "8.314 J/K*mol" while punching buttons on his calculator angrily, he obviously couldn't hear me, but still. The sad thing in all this is, I think this could well qualify for the angriest I've ever seen my brother, and he's pouting at at a Chem book. So I continue to glare at him for until, at last looking up, he sees me. "Hey Lee."

Don't you 'hey Lee' me, Mister, I thought at him, though, of course, there was no way he could hear me, me being wolf and him not at the moment. You're part of Kate's plan to force me into phasing back to human, so I won't hear when Jake and the others decide to go after Sam and his pack. I was pretty sure that was Kate's plan anyway. Well, I wasn't having it. So what if I'd spent the better part of the week a wolf? So had Judy. We were calling it girl bonding time. Even if it allows us to spy on what the boys were doing when they were wolves and we weren't with them, all from the comfort of the leeches' home, complete with soft, plush carpets and television. Well, it's not going to work, not even if it means I have to glare at you from now until eternity Seth Daniel Clearwater.

(I paused my ranting for a moment to consider all the different ways in which his name sounded stupid, why my mother had potential thought the combination of "Seth Daniel" sounded good – I think it was the acid she had to have been on while she was pregnant, because how else could my brother be so insanely happy at all times except now, when he was glaring at his Chem book, - and all the other bad middle names that could have followed "Seth" and she hadn't chosen. I blame Kate. Why, you ask? Because, shortly after the boys had left for school, she came in, sat cross-legged in front of me with a stack of computer printouts two inches high and, without further explanation, said, "Talmai, meaning 'heap of waters', which I think is an ironical touch, and was the father of Maacah, one of the wives of David."

(I'd blinked at her, then moved three inches over so I could see the TV screen, but said nothing.

(She continued: "Reuben, which is either 'he has seen my misery' or 'behold, a son' depending on whose interpretation you take, though it could also come from the Arabic ra'abil, meaning wolves, also ironic, and he was the oldest child of Jacob and Leah in the Bible..."

(At this point I looked at Nessie, who was holding the remote, who kindly turned the TV up so I could hear Oscar and Big Bird talk about the letter of the day. It was either Sesame Street or C-Span.

(But still Kate had continued, flipping the page over, "Simeon, or Simon, second son of previous Jacob and Leah, meaning 'he has heard of my suffering' and, if you take Sefer haYashar's account seriously, was immensely strong at a young age."

(Nessie turned the TV up louder, and I gave a lupine sigh.

("Dinah," Kate said louder still, "only daughter of above mentioned Jacob and Leah, meaning 'vindicated,' and, as I understand it, the name of your Jacob's maternal grandmother..." and so on and so on my annoying, yet, sadly, best friend, had continued for over an hour, until, temporarily giving up my make-sure-I-at-least-know-if-the-boys-lost-control-and-phased-in-school-by-being-phased-myself plan, I went human long enough to tell her how I'd no inclination of feeding her penchant for biblical references; how, if she continued to mention baby names, I'd name them Thing One and Thing Two just to spite her; and how she could pick the middle names if she wanted if it meant she'd leave me the monkey-flinging shit alone, but, God, if she didn't let me watch the damned singing muppets, I was going to go off the deep end, which in turn resulted in Nessie changing the channel to live coverage of some vote going on in the House and discussing it quite loudly with Alice's half-breed, Nahuel, who I thought, having lived in the Amazon forest for the better part of a century-and-a-half, probably didn't care the least about some random bill that wouldn't effect any of them anyway passing through Congress.)

Back to the present, though, Seth was back to glaring at his book, "Jake says I can't go see Ruth until I finish my homework."

My brother has a girlfriend. God, I feel old.

No, wait, that's wrong. I feel too God-damn young, that's what it is. I am too young to be married. I am too young to be den-mother to two half-grown pups and those two as-yet-born. I am too young to have lost so much in my life, or gained half as much as I have.

I have, with my brother's help, destroyed Alec, one of the prized child-guards of the Volturi, which is a plus in the adult direction. I've done other things besides, which should make me an adult, but...

I feel too young. Twenty-one is so very young. I'm only just now beginning to understand how much is out there that I don't know. Not things like all the state capitols or the names of all the kings of England – I used to know that, the state capitols, I mean, back in fourth grade, but it doesn't matter one iota about that, - but things that actually matter. For instance, the imprint thing. Still don't know why Sam (may fleas find their way up his ass), Jared, Paul, and Quil have imprinted when none of the rest of us have, let alone why they imprinted, why it happens at all, nor what it's purpose might be beyond something of the survival-of-the-species, make-sure-they-hook-up-with-girls-significantly-outside-their-gene-pool-to-expand-ours-but-still-close-enough-that-there's-a-good-chance-the-werewolf-gene'll-be-passed along. And a we don't even know if that's the actual purpose of imprinting. That's just what the Elders think, but who know how he manage to turn into wolves, let alone anything more than the presence of vampires sets it off. I still half fear that Jake will go off and imprint and leave me behind... which makes me feel like a stupid eight-year-old girl, because I fucking flew to Seoul and back to be with him and, from his reaction to such, I doubt he'd ever willingly leave... but imprinting isn't willing and has been known to break up perfectly functioning relationships before. I could go on with the list of things I don't know, including not limited to a) whether or not we were really going "feral," as Kate put it, or simply insane during all the escalating pissing-contests between various members of the two packs, b) when the twins would be born, and if, like Ness, they'd grow super-fast because they'd done so in the womb, c) how to take care of said twins, d) how to stop afore mentioned pissing-contests before the twins were born because said contests can only escalate and it had already gotten to the point I was surprised the boys weren't fighting in the halls of their school, and, e) when Esme would stop pretending to be the sweet, innocent, blah-de-blah-blah mother around here and admit that she was just as bad as Alice, or Kate, or Rose when it came to planning for my completely unnecessary, over-the-top, I-still-have-no-idea-where-it's-being-held second wedding to Jake, 'cause one was apparently not good enough for people who'd been around long enough to know the difference the camera made on their stalkerish lives. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to be a character in one of Kate's odd banana daiquiri stories two hundred years in the future. Knowing her, she'd track down one of my descendants, or one of Seth's, or somebody's just so she could say, "I knew your mother/aunt/etc when..."

Kate has been seventeen for a thousand years. I am older than she'll ever be, but...

I want to break something. I think that's the only cure. I am going to break something and it will make me feel less confused and less inclined to willingly watch Sesame Street with Ness while she skimmed through some book in the original Aramaic or Hebrew or Sumerian or whatever. I'll settle for Seth's Chem book, though.

I was just getting to my paws and preparing to shred the book – not for any good reason, but because I thought it had to be better then sitting here, trying to make sure Judy slept, keeping all wolf frequencies open in case one of the boys phased and decided to try and get themselves hurt, or killed, or whatever going up against Sam and the La Push pack; because it had to be better then sitting here feeling empty and...

That was it, wasn't it? I was empty... Judy cried, and I was empty. It hadn't even been a month since Matty died and things were getting worse for us... because Judy could barely sleep without getting a dream of her brother, with whom she was so close, closer than I'd ever been to Seth... because I felt so empty and shallow and useless having let my pup die, it was ridiculous, and I couldn't cry or anything because I didn't have the tears left in me to do so... because Jake saw Matty's death as something that had proven how we had to be one pack again to be strong, so no more pups would die, so I could be happy again... because Quil now worried more for Claire's safety then he'd during all the days we'd spent so far at the Cullens...

Halfway up, I fell back on my haunches, all intentions for murdering Seth's Introduction to Chemistry abandoned. How long had it been? Two weeks, six days, nine hours, twelve minutes...? I honestly had no idea, not really, but it would just hit me like this. Matty was dead. Matty was dead. The boy who had phased and joined our pack solely because of the leeches who'd come to help protect Nessie was dead. And I was still alive. I should be happy for that. Life is good. It means I get that house I want, that family, those lazy days on the beach with daiquiris of any-flavour-but-banana. Being alive means getting to live...

Yes, my life manages to suck on occasion. But it's gotten better. And, even if it hadn't, I suppose it was better to be alive and bitch-depressed-messed-up-crazy than dead and nothing at all.

Get it together, Leah. We've had this discussion... We can't change the past. Pouting won't make it go away.

You go away...

And meanwhile, in Judy's dream, I could hear her brother calling out to her, "Judy, Judy, why didn't you help me?" while he bled pitifully from a thousand wounds he'd never suffered. Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'ni? and all that – but, no, wait; that was Kate's influence in my head, and Emmett's, who knew a verse that could be perverted for any occasion.

Seth had set down his books by now and was looking more keenly at me. "I feel like I'm being a bad brother to you."

I blinked not just to clear my head, but in response to his bizarre comment as well. Seth was okay, for an annoying little brother who I spent all of my free time around (not of my own free will, assuredly, but still) and who just happened to be one of my husband's best friends. It was like a bad sitcom, only without Seth being a druggie, alcoholic, or human trafficker. Which was good in my book. Hell, he was more vanilla than Edward even. That was scary.

"I mean, with this whole," he waved his hand at me, finishing the motion by brushing a lock of hair out of his eyes, flushing a little. "I should've threatened him with bodily harm if he hurt you."

I was hurt? I looked down at myself. Looked like a dog who'd eaten a beach ball, but other then that...

"I mean, well, Sam. I should've-" he noticed me rolling my eyes at him. "No one else can be quite so mean without saying anything at all, you know. And, no, it's not a compliment. Are you going to phase so I can talk to you properly or is this going to be a monologue?"

With a faint growl, I trotted over to the closet, which was, thankfully, one of those walk-in numbers, and, when I came out, was in a pair of sweats and a baggy t-shirt that, painfully, read "Toothpaste is not a spermicide."

"Nice shirt."

"Go fuck yourself, baby brother."

"I love you too, Lee."

I wrinkled my nose, but, groaning as I slid down the wall, I sat next to him anyway. "I don't even know how we can be related."

"It's the werewolf thing that gives it away. And the fact we both got Mom's nose. You look like someone took a tire pump to you."

"Tire pump?" I shook my head and stole his Chem book away, much to his dislike, and flipped through to some random diagram of an ice cub melting. "Of all the pregnant jokes out there, you go with tire pump? Obviously, I got all the brains in the family."

"You married our illustrious Alpha. I think that's more a sign of insanity than brains."

"Don't you like worship the ground he walks on? Don't lie to me, I've been in your head. And what a scary trip it was. Thank God it was so short."

It was Seth's turn to roll his eyes. "I like Jake. I like you, most of the time. But the idea of you together still weirds me out. Like oil and water suddenly mixing or, I dunno, cabbage and chocolate or some- Hey! You don't have to hit so hard, you know."

"I do when that's what it takes to get through your thick skull. 'Sides, you think that's weird? The idea of you having a girlfriend."

At that my brother blushed. Like the-red-coats-are-coming scarlet blushing that, had he been human, would've had all the leeches in the manor running for him. "Ruth's not my girlfriend- I mean, we haven't even been on a date yet. And-" If it was possible, he went redder still.

"Seth and Ruth sitting in a tree," I started singing, just to annoy him.

Imagine my surprise when, from two floors below, I heard Emmett bellow out, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G," to be joined a moment later by Kate and Alice. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Ruth with a baby carriage!"

"What they said," I finished, shaking my head at annoying, all-hearing vampires who had nothing better to do then gossip for the rest of their undead lives about werewolves and the odd things we do.

"So yeah, you were saying something about being a bad brother or something?"

"Well, yeah, I mean... Sam tried to hurt-"

"Defile," I corrected. "Just thinking about it makes me need mints..."

"Ooookaaaay," Seth drawled, "defile, hurt, whatever. I'm your brother. I should've threatened him with bodily harm after the last time."

I snorted. "Firstly, Claire could beat your ass, not to mention what Sam would've done to you had you tried. Secondly, I can take care of myself, and don't need you watching out for me. Big girl. Have the evidence under my shirt to prove it. Thirdly-"

"I know you can take care of yourself," Seth sighed, "but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Well, I know that you can't help being an annoying shit, but I don't have to like it either."

"Ha, ha, very funny, Lee."

"I thought it was hilarious. Is that enough 'girl-talk' for you, though, or do I have to ask Kate to paint your toenails too?"

"What's the rush? Jake's not going to run off and attack Sam all on his lonesome or anything while you're not paying attention. You can go downstairs and listen to the Cullens and everyone else talk about all the fun different ways they can run their government."

"If I wanted to, I could hear from up here. But I don't, so I won't, and I just want to go back to sleep... which is easier when there's a ten-pound weight under my fur and not thirty trying to claw its way out of my skin."

Seth looked sympathetic for a moment, then burst into one of his oh-so-annoying smiles. "It's your own fault you know."

I hung my own head mock-dolefully. "I know. Abstinence-only education has failed me too. I really must write that letter to our dear congressmen telling them how, if I wasn't really a closeted lesbian trying so hard to fight against her natural urgings because their church told me it was 'impure' and whatnot, I wouldn't have slept with everything that moved and how, if only I'd known about birth control and abortions weren't stigmatized, I wouldn't be becoming a unwed mother, 'cause their way of thinking won't recognize a civil wedding... Too much?"

"Too much. I think you've spent too much time around Kate: your humour's gone to pieces."

"Well, you didn't spend all morning hearing how it would be wonderful for the twins to be Reuben and Dinah Black."

"Reuben? As in the sandwich?"

"Apparently it was someone in the Bible first."

"You could always go with Seth..."

"Name one of your own God-damn children after yourself! God! Everyone with their own banana-fucking, monkey eating opinion... Well just see how you like it when you get your Ruthie pregnant-"

"I-" Seth began, but I was on a role now, and yelling was almost as good as breaking something.

"-and then we'll see who has to deal with vampires with baby name books!"I was all but shouting. Judy began to stir. "Now look what you've done!"

"I've done!"

"Don't shout! Judy's trying to sleep!"

"But-"

"Oh, go annoy someone else. I'm tired and feel like curling up in the closet-"

"The closet? But-"

"It's dark," I explained. Dark would be nice... maybe I would curl up in there... And, with that, I kicked my brother out and, phasing back, went to try to help Judy through her waking nightmare...


	9. Theth

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

Salvor Hardin in Isaac Asimov's Foundation

* * *

"I'm not going."

"You agreed to go."

"No, I didn't."

"Well, Alice agreed for you."

"I hate Alice."

"You just told her you loved her." Indeed, the clairvoyant midget, probably Seeing the future of all her clothing disappear, had decided that the best way to keep me from flipping out, whatever the reason, was to provide me with chocolate often and early.

"She brought me chocolate pudding... you came up here and told me that Emily and Kim are throwing me a baby shower. Today. And that I have to go."

"You do have to go," Jake said, trying to inch the door of the walk-in closet wider. "Because I am going, and I have plans for murdering Sam by drowning him in the bowl of fruit punch."

"Really?" I didn't want to want Jake to kill Sam – it'd piss off Emily – but that hadn't stopped me yet. I tried, I honestly had, but the more time that had passed since his tongue-defilement, the more I wanted him dead... which made no sense, I know, but you know what they say about revenge and freezer burn...

"Oh yes."

"What if there's not fruit punch?"

"There will be. Quil called Claire's mom, and she's helping Emily set up, so there will be punch."

"And does Marissa know why Quil wanted punch so badly?"

"She probably just thinks that Quil likes fruit punch... She already thinks he's kinda weird. I mean, what other guy is content to just to watch cartoons with a three-year-old and baby-sit whenever, without any creepy undertones?"

"In fifteen years she won't be so happy when he's hanging around her all the time."

"Sue doesn't mind me hanging around you."

"Only 'cause there's a piece of paper around here somewhere that it'd be bad for your health for you to be hanging around other girls all the time."

"You're in rare form today Lee," Jake said, now with the door half-open and looking at me oddly as I sat in the corner of the closet finishing up the pudding. If he was surprised at my chosen location for pudding eating, he chose not to show it, but, since we were werewolves and not exactly the best at hiding what we were feeling, it seemed he'd gotten to the point where nothing I did surprised him any more. How awful. "Now you want to tell me why you're sitting in a closet?"

"It struck me as den-like."

"I see... Well, no, actually, I don't."

"Neither do I. I just thought, 'hey, that closet looks like it'd be a nice place to hang out,' and so I did."

"And do these voices in your head tell you to hurt yourself or anybody else?"

"All the time," I dead-paned, looking sadly at the now-empty all-too-small bowl of pudding. Alice had brought me after I'd stomped upstairs and burst into tears after discovering Embry had ate the last blueberry muffin, again, probably fearing that this would somehow lead to the the destruction of her clothes. And I thought terrible hormones were supposed to be better by now. Stupid, stupid hormones. "But then I usually end up hitting you or one of the boys, and the thoughts go away... It works out."

"Esme made more muffins."

"Embry's probably ate them already."

"Alice said he couldn't."

"Since when does Embry listen to leeches?"

"Since Judy learned your right hook."

"We had to 'bond' somehow. You know that she told her mom that she wasn't? Her mom, I mean? Told the poor woman that we were. Like we'd adopted her or something."

"Does that mean I should ground her or something for hitting Embry?"

"Let's just ground them all and save ourselves the trouble..." I sigh. "You really going to kill Sam today?"

"That's the plan. I even have a back-up involving garland in case Quil drinks all the fruit punch." He smiled one of his wonderful, boyish smiles at me that made me wonder why I hadn't just jumped him in the first place rather then go through all the rigmarole we had (okay, I could list all the reasons, from him being my best friends' younger brother up to imprinting and back down again to him being my younger brother's best friend, but still).

"If I'm going to be there – which I'm not – then Mom's going to be there. And if Mom's there, Charlie will be, and killing someone, however deserving, in front of a cop is generally considered more stupid then usual."

"Edward and Jasper have been helping me with that. We've come up with this wonderful distraction. I just hope they could get enough helium..."

"You're crazy, you know that?" I sighed again, giving in as he helped me to my feet.

"Sure, sure."

The ride to the old church was tolerable, if only 'cause I got to sit in the front with Jake and Judy and the muffin-stealing overgrown-munchkins that were, unfortunately, my pack. That didn't stop them (mainly Embry) from complaining though. "Aren't baby showers like girl things?"

"If I have to go to this stupid thing, so do you."

"But you're like the one Emily's doing this for. You have to go."

"It was coercion, believe me. And if I have to go, you have to go to."

"Why?"

"I dunno? 'Cause I'm a bitch? Quil's going for Claire... so why don't you find yourself a girlfriend to pester all the time instead of me?"

"Claire's-"

"God, man, we know. She's only three. Whatever. Imprintee, child-bride, whatever, it's still creepy," Embry said, staring out the window. "These family things weird me out."

Seth, squished between the two, tried to ease the tension. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what he was trying to do. One never could tell with Seth. "Mushrooms weird you out."

"Have you ever looked at a mushroom, man? It eats things, but grows like a plant... it's like... a planimal. Totally weird."

And, with the discussion of how freaky mushrooms were taking up everyone's concentration, I was left to sulk (and feel carsick) in peace. Because I did not want to go to any freaking baby shower, let alone one in which Sam or any of the other La Push Pack would be at, 'cause I'd end up having to shower for ages afterwards, again... And I wasn't exactly comfortable with everyone staring at me, celebrating that I'd managed to get myself knocked up. It was like, hello, you can't just pretend that this time last year you didn't all think I was just a genetic dead-end, menopausal bitch who you'd be happy to have go away somewhere and never come back. And I hate Paul. And Sam. Colin and Brady are okay, and Jared at least is fair when it comes to things, and I don't know anything about their pups, but it's like, if Judy and Zack, who've been wolves the shortest time of all of us, are feeling wolfish-thoughts about similarly young members, then bad things are bound to happen. And they're all bound to be there, 'cause the list of females I know is like, five plus a dozen or so undead vampires, one of which is my mother, another is in Hawaii, and the rest are all the imprints or imprints' mothers. So I guess that makes it like seven in total, but still. Point made. And since imprints never go anywhere without their imprinters, and since we travel in packs...

God, pink streamers and annoying boys. I can see it now.

Actually, I can't. I've never been to a baby shower... 'cause Melissa's didn't count, 'cause I mostly spent it eating and ignoring everything around me. What I do remember includes a lot of pink, stuffed animals with pink ribbons, and an amazing cake. I was still friends with Emily then and would've thought that she'd have remembered how much I hated that one, but it's been three years and she probably feels like she's doing me a favour or making up for "stealing" Sam or something. She can't just buy me chocolate like a normal person why? Hell, she can't even send me a muffin basket? The note can read: "I hope these muffins make up for the general shittiness of the universe" and everything.

I don't want to have to deal with any of this mess right now... Especially the boys. Especially the La Push boys. I mean, my own are enough to deal with. I abdicate responsibility for all things not-me related. Jake can deal with it. I'm tired of having all these arguments that get nowhere with Sam and his and if, maybe, we actually could agree on the fact we needed one Alpha and one pack...

Maybe if I pretend to faint like halfway through? Or, no, fake contractions... I can only pull that one like once before they get wise to it, but maybe... Judy likes me. Maybe I can get her to pretend to faint... anything to get out of this. I've said it once, I've said it again: a party without vodka is not a party I want to attend.

Even if it might be nice to talk to a girl who isn't a blood-drinking parasite. I'd enjoyed talking to Emily – for a while, before she started getting overly girly – and it'd be nice to see Rachel, who really was okay except for the whole Paul thing, wasn't that bad. And Mom would probably be there...

But, if we really are growing feral-

"...cannibalism is never the answer."

This comment, naturally, shocked me out of my thought-stupor. Jake was leaning next to my, open, door, looking very amused and not at all surprised that I wasn't getting out. I was rather surprised we were hear already... I had rather expected, in my brooding, for it to take lifetimes. "Wha-?" I paused, spat out the hair I hadn't realized I'd been chewing on, and glared up at him. My stomach was doing anxious flip flops,

"I know you don't want to do this, but we have to work on inter-pack relations somehow. We can't just go around growling and fighting all the time. One of these days someone is going to get hurt..." and he saw my face fall at that. "Oh, Lee, I-"

"I know," I said, getting to my feet and, because it felt right, burying my face in his shoulder. Even though he'd not expected the gesture, Jake's arms were around me in an instant. "I know I'm being stupid, but there's something inside of me telling me that this is a bad idea. A really, really, really bad idea."

I could feel him smiling into my hair as he held me, standing like that by the Rabbit, passenger door still open, all the passengers gone inside to what could best be called their doom. "Whatever you say, Obi-Wan."

But I pouted. "It's not funny, Jake. I just feel like I want to go hide in a hole until everyone has sorted everything out – and I never feel that way. But it's like... Well, I dunno what it's like, but I don't want to me here... I know! We're alone now, with a back seat all to ourselves..."

It was an all out snort of laughter this time. "As tempting as that sounds, Lee-"

"I knew it," I fake-sobbed, surprised to find myself giving off real tears. Stupid hormones. Stupid sped-up pregnancies. Stupid werewolf genes. Nothing to commend them at all – at least, I felt at the moment, not to their female constituents. "You think I'm-"

"You've got real issues," he said with a laugh, pulling back and shutting the car door at last, "you know."

Rolling my eyes, "You just know how to sweet-talk a girl, don't you?"

"Yes, and I happen to know there'll be chocolate cake inside, so it's not a total loss." He dragged me into the party with this and, leaving me in Mom's company while he went to make sure the pups stayed separated from each other. That was kinda amusing to watch, how the boys split up, each pack to their own corners of the room in some travesty of a middle school dance, but Mom was all over me with questions of the sorts I guessed people asked in situations like this, so I didn't much chance to actively mock.

"I do hope you'll figure something out soon," Mom said, looking like she was going to wax philosophical on the wonders of her "baby girl" having babies of her own if we didn't head her off. "I worry about you sleeping outside in weather like this."

I shrugged. It didn't really matter, since we weren't affected by the cold, but try telling that to Mom. "The Cullens have been good about letting us crash at their place. It used to just be the porch, but we're slowly taking over one of the rooms on the third floor... I think we'll have most of it conquered before the year is out."

"You intend to stay there, then?"

"Well, it's not like they don't have more than enough space..."

"Well, Charlie and I were thinking we could redo your room – it's not like we need two houses, and his is closer to the station..."

I wasn't concentrating on the conversation so much as watching the people around me, keenly aware of my packmates and more so, if possible, of the potential enemies. Mom surely wasn't noticing every time John ducked a little too close for comfort, or how even Quil would look up every few minutes from his corner, where he and Claire were doing whatever an almost-eighteen-year-old werewolf and his fourish imprintee do, to update his mental map of where the other pack was. So it was that I took a moment to realize what it was being said. "Oh, Mom, you shouldn't-"

"Well, like I said, it's not like we can use two houses."

"Yes you can. You can sleep in one one night, the other the next, or switch off weekly."

A frown creased her face. It was odd to see it there, happiness all but enveloping her ever since Charlie had proposed... I hadn't asked questions, but, God, it was creepy. Now, though, seeing her look sad seemed wrong somehow, and, for a moment, the old fear – that I'd ruin everyone around me – stirred sourly in my stomach. "Don't you want to live on the reservation then?"

With a forced smile, "Don't you?"

The one she returned me was real, though. "Reservation life isn't for Charlie."

"Hmm," I said, imagining Charlie at one of the bonfires... and then, chuckling, "you never know. The Swan family is very odd. He could be the next been shaman if you tried."

"And be the wife of a shaman? Never, Leah dear: too much entertaining for my tastes."

"Hypocrite. You love parties."

"Yes, but I hate cleaning up after them. And this was all Emily. And a little bit of Kim, Rachel, and Melissa." I'd noticed. Thank God they all had the sense to, for the moment, leave me with my mother. "You have such a way of making me feel old."

I said nothing to that, and instead looked with weariness upon the gift table, upon which, to my dismay, Seth was putting a life-sized stuffed wolf, complete with pink ribbon. I'd've thought Mom, of all people, would've realized you needed money and stuff to have a house of your own, and, with our distinct lack of pecuniary income, our ability to run a household became zero. After a moment, "I still need you, Mom. I mean, for the obvious, how am I supposed to know what you do with babies without you?"

Laughing, "Honey, you don't do anything with them."

It was my turn to frown. "Fine then. Be that way. See if I care. I guess I just won't tell you about Seth's girlfriend."

"Ruth Huntley? Everyone knows about that already."

Stupid Rez rumour mill. Take all the fun out of life, why don't it? "Ah, but I have details. For instance-"

"Leah!" Seth shouted, running over to clamp his hand over my mouth before I could say anything more. "Don't listen to her, she- Hey!" he shouted girlishly, pulling his hand back suddenly. "You bit me."

"You were asking for it, baby brother."

"See how mean she is, Mom?"

I rolled my eyes, and went back to watching the boys. "Isn't this supposed to be my party? Doesn't that mean you have to be nice to me?"

"I'm always nice. 'Sides, this isn't your party: it's the twins."

"And since I'm the one whose insides their clawing up- Seth, do me a favour and drag Jake away the punch bowl, will you?"

I guess Jake had informed Seth of his plan too, 'cause my brother didn't question me. Rachel, who'd been drawn over by the his earlier shouting, though, looked at me oddly. "I'm trying to keep your brother out of jail."

"No – Emily was right, you look like you swallowed a balloon. I didn't believe her at first, but... you can't really be only three months along."

"Oh, believe me, it's less than that. The popular money's on April, and I've Jasper's number programmed in if you want to place a bet..."

"No, that's okay... I just had to see it with my own eyes. Jesus H. Christ, Lee, you and my brother... I'll have you know when I called Becca-"

"You told your sister!" That pulled me away from the rather heated, whispered discussion Seth and Jake were having by punch bowl. "Holy fucking mother of God, woman, are you crazy?" Rebecca, unlike her sister, had the most annoying tendency to share everything that was on her mind...

"She only squealed just a little and did her I-told-you-so's for an hour. Apparently she and Rip are visiting his grandparents in Apia next week, else she'd be here telling you so herself."

"And give her the pleasure of knowing she was right? Never. She's only been insisting on it since I was eight."

"She always wanted you for a sister." God knows why. But, with typical, child-like determination, she realized that, in order for me to be her sister, since I wasn't one naturally, I would have to marry her brother, and set about trying to accomplish this for several weeks until something more amusing occupied her thoughts.

"Never wanted Paul for a brother, though."

"He's not so bad."

"I doubt-"

And then the shouting began.

"-my presumption! Fucking hell, Uley, you were the one who-!"

Oh shit.

"-into my home, our borders, what did you think I would do? Blithely allow-?"

Oh shit, shit, shit.

"-expect you to at least keep your hands off of somebody else's-!"

Oh, mother-fucking horse-throwing, peacock-gambling, squirrel shit. This couldn't end well.


	10. Yodh

"I assure you from a God's Olympian perch that government is a  
shared myth. When the myth dies, the government dies."

Leto Atreides II in Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune

* * *

It is a common fact of life that boys, en mass, are stupid. One, separate from others, may be kind and decent and even smart, but, so much as put two in a room together, and they become blundering Neanderthals concerned only over who has the biggest club or could hit the hardest. However, considering how our phasing gives come credence to the legend that our closer ancestors were Canis lupis rather then Homo erectus, I should probably say they become blundering wolves, and I've never exactly heard of any sort of canine being known for its intelligence.

Homo sapiens lycanthropii, I was told Edward had named us the first time they'd been to Forks. Why Edward, I hadn't the slightest idea, except that I'd been informed that leeches called themselves Homo sapiens vampyrii by one of Linnaeus's students on his way back from Smyrna shortly before being drunk by one of them, and Carlisle had picked up the name during his stay with the now dead Volturi and adopted it himself. And why had they told me this, you ask? Because Emmett had decided to up his bet for the twins being two girls to an even thousand and prove to me he knew both biology and math in the same go by claiming, since there was already only a one-in-four chance that both twins would be werewolves and clearly were, as they were both phasing (painfully) in the womb, and chances of two fraternal twins both being wolves smaller than the one-in-two chance that identical twins would be. It was all very odd, and I was half inclined to believe his choice of twin girls over twin boys was as a result of "divine revelation" from one of his "religious meditations" that, inevitably, ended in front of the TV. Vampires were weird.

And werewolves were hormonal idiots, even if the ones in question weren't as spherical as I was at the moment.

"-hands off of somebody else's," Jake said, his voice loud but not a shout, firm but with an undertone of worrisome anger that all of us wolves recognized before the thought could be fully processed, and on both sides of the argument bystanders released half-articulated hisses and toothy snarls, "unless they want them there."

I was moving away from Mom and Rachel before they could box me in with questions, elbowing people out of the way with a scarcely appropriate, "'Cuse me," that, even months earlier, I knew, would've been a "'Cuse you." But I hadn't time to reflect on how I might or might not've changed. Reflection is for people who want to remember the past, and the only thing it has ever taught me is how cruel a place the world can be.

It took me a moment to get through, but I was at the centre of things before too long, not at all surprised to find Sam and Jake standing opposite each other, a good ten feet between them and half that separating them from everyone else, who did the mob thing and ringed them. Well, the wolves did. The few humans among us stood well back, wide-eyed and not in the bushy-tailed kinda way, much to Claire's obvious displeasure. I could see now that, for all his calm voice, Jake – and, for that matter, Sam, but who cares about him? - his skin was shaking with the effort to contain the animal within.

Then Sam shouted again, asking what on earth Jake meant by that, and I almost burst into chortles of laughter as the thought suddenly struck me that his memory was, quite obviously, as short as his stamina. You know what kind. I've spent too much time around Kate, that's the only thing I can say.

Instead of laughing, though, I slipped into place at Jake's side and hissed, "I thought the plan was murder, not another fight." The part of me I couldn't control (the one that'd be happy to have him kill Sam now, be it by fruit punch, garland, or fuzzy stuffed wolf) thought it was incredibly hot; the rest of me thought he was an idiot for trying to resurrect chivalry and deserving of some punishment akin to discussing flower arrangements or colour-coordinating cummerbunds with Alice and Kate for a few hours. The semi-rational part was winning, but the one that desired blood was closing in on the lead, fast.

For a moment, he seemed inclined to say, "First one, then the other," but instead settled for saying without turning from his death-glare, "For a guy who uses words like 'blithely,' he's not exactly the smartest is he?" It looked like Jake had grown again, for he was now easily two inches taller, or maybe Sam had shrunk; he did look far closer to Quil and Embry in height then he did my husband.

Husband. Still strikes me as strange every time. I don't know why. It's the word people use for the man they want to spend the rest of their lives with.

"Don't antagonize him. Let's just go home," I said, tugging at his arm and fighting the urge to say, "I told you so." Stupid boys. Stupid werewolves. Stupid imprints who want to throw parties for stupid reasons and won't let us have cake yet. None of this would happen if we were all full of cake and happily on our way home, sans giant stuffed wolf. Stupid Seth... They, of course, ignored me.

Sam started it, though: "This isn't the place-"

"So you haven't told Emily yet."

Did we have to relive this memory? And in front of Em too? No amount of evidence at this point would sway Emily against her soon-to-be (poorly endowed) hubby, so the only thing the words could do were hurt. "Jake, just drop it; he's not worth it."

"Of course he's not – but he's going to get someone else hurt-"

"I'm not the one," Sam said in a warning growl. I fell into the best crouch I could, given my odd centre of gravity, and was snarling before the end of it, "who got one of their own killed."

Bring up Matty, would he? I'd show him who's-

Jake put a hand on my shoulder, restraining my spring. "I was actually talking about you, but, since you can't seem to stop bringing up the fact, sure, let's talk about him for a while." Stupid mother-fucking fish-frying, flannel-wearing, witch-chasing, cow-tipping, trapeze-tumbling, treaty-treading, treasonous idiot-son of a filthy crack-whore and a bottle of scotch! Forget I said anything about not fighting. Just bring up poor, dead, Matty – and in front of Judith – will he? Does he have any idea how hard it is for her, not just to lose her older brother or a packmate, but to be estranged from her parents because of it? The girl is only twelve years old, for fuck's sake! The guy obviously doesn't know how to treat anyone, not just the poor saps who date him. "How about we talk about why, when you were fucking fully aware of the Volturi coming, you decided to let my pack handle it all on our own and went about your fucking business without so much as a thought that maybe – just maybe – the extra paws might help. How about we talk about what you can tell the Mora's when they ask why their son died in a war he wouldn't've been in-"

"Oh, yes," he said sarcastically, somehow managing to show more teeth than was strictly necessary, "Jake. It was my fault you chose to betray the tribe and become the leeches' family pet. If you'd just killed the half-breed while you had the chance, none of us would be in this mess right now."

The twins were clawing to get at the idiot. I wanted to phase, God, so badly, and rip Sam's brainless little head off for even trying to think the stupidity he was spouting. Matty's death was a freak accident, one that I was sure we were somewhat responsible for, but not entirely. Never entirely. Not like Sam was thinking. Stupid sadistic senile slippery smelly shameless sanctimonious Sam Uley. He must die. But, even as I thought these reasons for why I should give his shoulders a rest from carrying around that overinflated head of his, I knew it was the wolf who wanted to do it and was only waiting for the human part of me to let its guard down long enough. Must remember that Charlie's here and it probably won't be good for his job to have to explain why he let someone be killed right in front of him...

"First of all, Sam, if we were all as xenophobic as you, there'd be a lot fewer people around. Second, while I'm sure this may be a hard concept for you to grasp, there's a large difference between helping people and being their pet... but I suppose that's understandable for someone like you. I mean, can't seem to remember the difference between 'yes' and 'no' or 'yours' or 'someone else's' so I guess-"

"I've already-"

"Oh, yes, 'cause a half-apology really does make up for sexually assaulting someone." I was happy to note, as I struggled to straighten myself into some position reminiscent of a normal human being, Sam's face blotched a rather unbecoming shade of purplish-red. Jake, I was less happy to note, was staring down said ex-Alpha, meaning he didn't see the why-did-you-have-to-tell-everyone glare I sent his way. "You know how long she spent trying to get the taste of you out of her mouth?"

"I-"

"I don't want to be in charge of anybody, Sam, but, God, if you're going to be like this, I'd rather give it my best shot then let you hurt anyone else in the process."

The sound that came out of Sam's mouth in response to this wasn't even human, his body phasing from human to dark, utterly black wolf in seconds. Before I can so much as blink, Jake's phased too, as have Embry, Jared, Paul, and Quil, and I can hear a few strangled mutterings from human humans near the wall as well as an excited giggle from Claire, but they are faint over the lupine sounds. My eyes flitted between the tawny yellow eyes of the wolves opposite me and the pups (plus Seth, Colin, and Brady, who should count as ones anyway) and back again, before darting towards the imprints gathered by Mom and Rachel.

"Seth," I said softly, my voice tight as I clenched my teeth together, fighting the urge to phase and join my pack as Jake crouched defensively in front of me, his tail just brushing my leg when he shifted, "take the pups outside. All of them." My brother didn't say a word, just shooed them – even Sam's, who didn't protest, which I took to be a sign Emily was right and I was a goddess incarnate to them, whatever their reasons – outside. He knew as well as I did what would become of us if another pup got hurt, and God knows it wouldn't be pretty. Attempts to get drunk could only take us so far on the road to recovery.

The two Alphas continued to stare at each other, a wild sight amongst the streamers and the various other party paraphernalia. Its things like this that prove to me that the universe is out to get me: in a truly random universe, the pattern would be so random that it would have long stretch of time where normality held say. But, since it never did, I was forced to the conclusion that it was being manipulated with the intent of driving me mad. Stupid universe. Didn't it have anything better to do besides see that my life got the dirtiest end of the pig sty? You'd've thought it might've cleaned itself up after the Volturi... but no. That was asking too much, obviously. I spared a quick look towards Emily and wasn't surprised at all to find silent tears trailing down her half-beautiful, half-torn face. Or to see Colin and Seth's heads in the window behind her.

"Guys," I said, trying to step around Jake and finding myself being tugged back by Embry, who's teeth had a careful grip on the back of my shirt. I could tell when we got home we were going to have to have a long talk about their medieval tendencies and which grave to bury them in. Still, the shirt was a shirt was a shirt, and it was more than easy to tug right back and, with the faint tearing of fabric, be free. "Jake," I tried again, putting a hand on his wide, russet-furred shoulders and tangling my fingers there, kneeling down so I was eye level with him, "come on. Let's just go home."

His long stare, ending with a gentle lick on one of my cheeks, seemed to say, I know you want this as much as I do. I'm tired of dancing around this. Let us end it, though he had to know I was of the opinion that nothing we did here today could make things any better... and, probably, would make it worse.

House. Beach. Alcoholic beverages. Some peace and quiet. That was all I wanted. But was it too much to ask? Apparently. Stupid universe.

"Fine then, get yourself killed, see if I care," I huffed, planting a kiss on top of his head and staggering to my feet again. The humans were looking more than a little confused, and it looked up to me to play ambassador. Again. At least they were next to the food. Taking a stop at the buffet, I cut a plate-sized slice of cake and kicking up a chair, joined the highly confused imprints, parents, and assorted other non-werewolves. More than a few appeared worried that their loved ones would be hurt; Melissa, on the other hand, appeared to be vaguely appalled that I'd touched Jake while he was in wolf form. I momentarily considered illuminating her on the wonders of werewolf sex, then remembered my mom was a few spaces down. Still, I mused biting into the chocolate-chocolate cake, she doesn't know what she's missing.

Billy was the one to break the silence, rolling over and handing me a glass of punch, presumably to make sure I didn't choke and die while chewing and thereby deprive him of non-Paul-descended grandchildren. "Care to share with the class?"

"Sure. As much as I want the entire cake to myself, I doubt this," I waved my fork at the stupid boys, who were doing little more then growling at each other (no, I take that back, they were probably holding very tense, one-sided arguments in which they were trying to convince the other – who, I say again, could not hear them – how stupid he was) and making some half-pacing, half-circling motions, "will last longer then this slice..."

This didn't appear to be the answer Billy was looking for, so I commented for him: "Sam is having delusions of grandeur again... Jake wants him to step down graciously before someone gets hurt, but that's not happening... It looks like Jared," I jabbed the fork towards the dark brown wolf close to the black one who was gesturing himself towards us, then, around a mouthful of cake "is trying to talk Sam out of it, or maybe just remind him we're here. Embry just wants to fight – he's kinda peeved at the moment, has been since his birthday; we think Ms. Call told him who his dad is, but he's been good about hiding it from us if that's the case – and isn't too particular about who. Had the strangest arm wrestling match with Emmett yesterday... Paul, well, he's probably torn between wanting to rip Jake a new one and fearing what Rachel," I jabbed my fork again, "will do to him if he does, and Quil's just going with the flow. They'll probably continue like this for another few minutes, exchange some hits, and then someone will say enough's enough and drag this out to another day..."

Emily was doing a poor job of containing herself by this point. It was kinda embarrassing. "What did he mean?" she asked around the sniffles of a woman betrayed, "What did he do? Tell me, please-"

If the way he treats women is any indication, it looks like Sam's taking after his father. If Emily was smart, she'd recognize this. But people who make-out with their beloved cousins' boyfriends generally aren't the smartest of people. "Er-" I looked to Rachel for help, but she, like everyone else, with the possible exception of Billy, was looking at the wolves. "So," I continued somewhat weakly, "translating: Sam's probably saying something about how epically stupid helping the Cullens was, blah, blah, blah, to which Jake is adding something about doing the right thing... and that growl was Embry saying something along the lines of, 'Forget that, just crush his spirit already, then we can sell the spirit dust to the gypsies,' and, yeah, I've spent entirely too much time in their heads... You know what's just awful, though? They all phased in their clothes, so I get to drive back with three naked boys..." And Emily was looking at me in a way that just made me want to slap her. I mean, Sam's a dick, but that was established long ago. She shouldn't be so surprised. Fool me once and all of that shit. "Don't take it too seriously, okay?" I said falteringly. "I don't think he meant it. We were just arguing and he kissed me and as soon as I could I got away from him... He loves you, he really does, it's just..." I waved my fork uncertainly, saddened that the cake had been unaccompanied by ice cream. I felt a pang in my chest. "It's just scents and instincts and- God-fucking beaver-humping damn it!" I felt one twin phase, then the other, exerting strange and all-too-familiar pains on a body that was not meant to hold such forms.

Flinging my plate down, a slid out of the chair, phasing as I did so, hearing the shouting match before my paws hit the ground. So, what did I miss?

Seems Jake and Sam can talk to each other now, Quil offered, and we can hear him through Jake. Someone is not happy you told on him.

If he'd just kept his hands to himself... I shuddered, not so much from the memory as the twins, who were quite mad at a certain Alpha for making their mommy mad... which made me wonder if they weren't überwolves with steel claws. Jake, just tell him how upset he's making Em and he'll give up. I lay my head on the floor and tried not to whimper. God, once they were born these babies were going to be grounded until they could walk...

Jacob did one better than that: You've got two weeks. Either your pack willingly joins mine by then, or there's going to be hell to pay, and with that just turned his back on Sam and trotted over to me, showing the bastard just where he fell in the scheme of things.


	11. Kaph

"She wanted something just like the real thing, he needed love  
and it all worked out somehow. He knows that love is the king of emotion,  
but he can't touch her 'cause she's too perfect now."

Matchbox Twenty "Suffer Me"

* * *

"It's karma."

No, the mother-fucking horse-jumping float-burning freezer-melting banana-eating hell it's karma. Karma's supposed to even things out and, as I don't recall being a serial murderer-rapist-cannibal who authorized the second holocaust, I don't deserve this.

Quil, who had phased back, been proffered pants from who knows where (and frankly, I don't want to know who brings an extra set of pants to a baby shower, even a werewolf one), was now playing the part of ambassador. Paul and Jared were in the far corner trying to calm Sam down enough to phase back, Embry looked like he was having a staring contest with the stuffed wolf, and the pups were sitting around eating my cake while Emily cried in the bathroom with Kim and Melissa. The remainder of the humans were sitting around in shock, excepting Billy, who went and got himself a piece of cake like we'd been watching nothing more than the weather, and Claire, who was sitting on the floor playing with my tail. "Right now, by the way, she's probably telling me exactly why it isn't. Am I right Jake?"

Jake, who was flopped beside me with a I'm-sorry-I-knocked-you-up-but-wasn't-it-fun-getting-there look on his wolfy face, nodded at Quil then went back to looking only slightly sheepish. Stupid boy. It was all his fault too.

Blame our illustrious ancestors.

I wasn't aware that any of their ghosts were whispering in your ear, "Sleep with her, sleep with her, we want great-great-great-whatever-grandkids."

Well, you never know.

I dunno...You know, babies, Mommy really doesn't appreciate it when you use her insides as a scratching post.

You talk to the twins?

You say that like its a weird thing. Pack hears each other's thoughts, they little werewolves so part of the pack... no idea if they understand me, but they get disgusted when you kiss me, so I think they've inherited the gross-old-folks,-run gene.

Embry, who, like I said, was staring at the stuffed wolf, had to add his two cents in – 'cause that's what the pack does. I swear, we're like a gossip mill without the grinding grain part. Dude, we can see both your thoughts you know. It grosses all of us out. And there's something wrong with this wolf.

I yawned, then flinched again. Dimly, I could hear Quil explaining to Mom and Rachel that whenever I got mad, the twins got mad with me, leading to a lot of time as a wolf before they calmed down. Charlie was pinching the bridge of his nose, and I was fairly certain he was trying to figure out a way this party could end without him having to bring anyone into the station. At least it was my own party I was ruining.

Like what?

Look at it, Embry said, Who does it look like?

Jake, obligingly, padded over the the table where, amongst the gaudily wrapped presents (let's see, what do you get the couple that has nothing except an old car, a lean-to, and a pair of Cullen-bought cell phones. But said phones do have unlimited minutes. Even if this means that Rachel will undoubtedly give her sister my number and I will have a thousand texts expressing Becca's happiness that she finally got what she's been angling for since Jake was in kindergarten... and I was in second grade... God, I'm a cougar. It was not the first time I'd had this thought.

No, you're a puma.

What's the difference?

Cougar-in-training. Smaller age difference.

Is that what they're teaching you in school these days?

Sometimes. Other times they teach us how Einstein invented the light bulb.

Don't you mean Edison?

I do. They don't.

Thank God for our wonderful teachers.

Hey... I think Embry's right. Doesn't the wolf look a little like Seth?

Yes, boys, it's sort of sandy brown. Like Seth. Like sand too.

I could feel Embry roll his eyes. But there's a brown patch behind the left ear... and look at the pattern on the snout. The little prick had somebody make a stuffed Seth.

I'm more concerned, said Jake, coming back over to me and licking my muzzle (Rachel squeezed her eyes shut for several moments at this and peaked at us with one eye before opening them fully once again), about why he put a pink ribbon on it.

To distract us, Embry said definitively. To distract us from his real goal. I'm going with mind control. You'd never expect it coming from Seth.

A thought suddenly struck me. Seth, pink ribbon, me pregnant... If Seth thinks I'm going to let him imprint on my daughter (if I have one) he's got another thing- and the twins kicked out violently at this, either in agreement or disgust, I'm not sure.

Seth's muzzle over paws with Ruth. Why would he want to imprint on anyone but her? Good point... Being around Sam's stupidity was obviously effecting my head in unforeseen ways. Must leave. Must leave now.

Gross, Jake was going loudly, shaking his head as if that would rid the idea, gross, gross, gross... Stop thinking things like that, Leah, or I'll have to poor bleach in my ears.

Oh, Jacob honey, don't worry about that. It'll all just come out the other.

Remind me why I love you again?

And this is why we think you two are gross. Are we nearly ready to get out of here, 'cause it looks like Emily's coming out of the bathroom and I don't want to be around for Sam Smack-Down: human edition...

It hurt like hell, and my kidneys certainly didn't like me much at the moment for letting them become punching bags, but I managed to phase back... with the twins still in let's-give-Mommy-a-hard-time wolf form. Mother-fucking cock-sucking ass-kissing toad-"wrangling, tribble-tickling, flag-burning son of a biscuit and a bail bondsman." My clothes were, once again, ruined, but standing naked in front of a group of my in-laws, pack members, and assorted enemies was nothing new to me. And, however shallow it may be, thank god I don't have stretch marks. "I swear, this is the last time I do this Jake."

Embry, who had phased back himself and was sniffing some of the wrapped packages, threw one at me, saying, "Wool. Think it's a blanket," before trying to find something that could be construed as clothes for himself. Good news, it was a blanket, and a large one at that. Bad news, it was pink. Not some supposedly gender neutral colour, like yellow, but pink. Still, it was something, I guess, and wrapped it around me.

"No more parties... I draw the line. There can be no more... Well, nice to see you everybody. Wish I could say it was fun- Emily," red-eyed and puffy-cheeked, rather then heading out the door like any normal person would have done after being told her fiancé forced his tongue in another girl's mouth (I'm going to have to hope Alice, in her infinite, all-Seeing wisdom, has stocked up on mints. I know she can't see us, but she's really good about guessing what'll happen based off of what she can see. Which is probably nothing good, as all the drug stores within fifty miles of Forks that sell mouthwash have all disappeared from her vision), is marching straight for Sam. Well, I always knew my temper came from Mom's side... Still, I may hate Sam and think Emily is a bitch for doing what she did, I don't want him to have to deal with hurting her again, or her to get hurt. Which, as Sam is still phased, though it's been several minutes now, is probably what will happen. "Em," I say again, hastily tucking the blanket in on itself so, hopefully, it won't fall, "Em, you, don't want to do this. It's nothing. It didn't mean anything. It's just the wolf thing... It's what happens this time of year... just watch NatGeo or Animal Planet or look it up online... can't help ourselves... I mean, you've said it yourself, the younger boys like worship me..." I was, sad to say, almost dancing in front of her, trying to keep one step ahead as, slowly but surely, she made her way towards Sam, Paul, and Jared. "Like I said, its nothing."

She paused then, and her eyes, still soft from crying, rose to meet mine. The scars down one side of her face tried to turn her expression into a grimace, but I had known Em since before I could remember. We'd been like sisters, once. Before. Maybe, if there was no such thing as magic, we still would be. Couldn't turn back time, though. Frankly, I'm not even sure I'd want to. Still, despite the scars, I knew the look. It was the small smile people give you when you ask them where your sunglasses are when they're perched in plain view on your head. Raising a hand, she put it gently to my face and said, "No, Leah. Its everything." Then she ordered us out, all of us, even Mom and Billy and the imprints.

"Does anyone else get the feeling they're missing something?"

"Who gives a flying fuck?" I said, in too much pain to have cared, even if I wanted to. Which I didn't. If anyone needed karma to give them their comeuppance, it was wonder '50s couple Sam and Emily. "Let's get out of here. I think the pink's giving me cancer..."

I scrambled out to the Rabbit, opened the back hatch, and climbed in. As soon as it was closed behind me, I tore off the blanket and phased back. There you are, kiddos. You happy? You better be, 'cause you're never having brothers and sisters... Or ever seeing your aunt and uncles again. I paused to consider this. Okay, you can see Seth, he's okay, when he's not being an idiot. I paused again. I can't remember the last time he wasn't being idiotic, but he's okay, some of the time.

The car doors opened and shook as overly large boys climbed in. "So, Lee," Quil asked, leaning over the backseat and staring at my wincing wolf-form, "That was fun. Let's not do it again."

"Ah, don't be mean," Judy said, climbing over her Beta and clambering into the "trunk" of the car with me. I was a large wolf, but she was a small girl, and could curl up next to me easily. "Don't listen to him, Aunt Leah. I had fun. I wanted to see Sam and Uncle Jake fight though. It would've been fun."

"No it wouldn't," said Jake, slamming the driver's side door shut and still quaking a bit with anger. "Sam is a pansy. One hit and he'd be down, no fun at all."

"Well, if you hadn't told Sam – and I quote – to 'stop eye-fucking Leah' every time he looks at her, then none of this would have happened." I perked my ears up at this. So did the twins. So that's what started this all? God, I was going to have to have a talk with Jake about beating up every guy who so much as looked at me. I mean, I'm hot. I'm not being snotty here, it's true. It's part of the werewolf thing. People look at me. It happens... You don't see me scratching the eyes out of every girl who looked at him that way, now did you?

Okay, point taken.

"He shouldn't have been looking at her like that. He's engaged to Emily – they're getting married next week – for Christ's sake."

"And it has nothing to do with said eye-fucking being directed at our illustrious Alpha female?"

"Well, like I said, he shouldn't have been doing it."

I rolled my eyes at Judy. Boys: synonym for idiots. I really shouldn't have been surprised when Judy translated this for me, saying, "Aunt Leah thinks you're an idiot." We've spent entirely too much time in each other's heads. Judy was pretty cool, for a thirteen-year-old. Then again, considering my other two friends were a thousand-year-old vampire with boundary issues and a baby half-vamp who, while only a few months old and looking no more than a few years, had asked me if I thought Nahuel "liked" her, I guess Judy was very cool. Sure, she'd nightmares about her brother's death and really worried about what would happen when (and if) she got her period and if Zack liked her and imprinting and all that, but she'd be a fool not to. It was nice to have someone look up to me like she did. Kinda weird, but nice.

"She always thinks I'm being an idiot."

"Boys usually are." Yep, I'm defiantly rubbing off on them.

"Personally," said Embry, "I take offence to that."

Seth, laughing in the front, "Don't bother, she's turning into Little Leah."

"Better than turning into you – what was with the wolf anyway? No one wants to see a life-sized version of you."

"I dunno. Alice had it made up and told me to give it to Ruth, but that was just a little too creepy for me... so I gave it to Mom instead, and it was in the truck when I was unloading everything for her. Makes me feel real loved."

"Something too creepy for Seth? Call the presses."

"I don't go around stalking her."

"Wait, I thought that stalking was the most popular sport here in Forks among guys."

"Second. Some of us still watch baseball."

"Creeps."

"I'm bored now."

"We'll be at the Cullens soon. It could be fun. They might have decided to try the 'Balloon Alice' idea after all?"

"Balloon Alice?"

"Yeah, I agree with Quil. What the fuck, man?"

"It was supposed to be Charlie's distraction while I killed Sam... Edward and Emmett were going to tie a whole bunch of helium balloons to Alice, wait 'til she starts to float away, and call Charlie frantic... I guess Jasper really didn't like the idea."

I rolled my eyes again. Judy translated. "Boys are stupid."

"Baby showers are stupid."

"Yeah, next time you knock her up, don't tell your parents, okay? 'Cause that was just awful..."

I growled, not that it shut them up, but at least we did get to the Cullens' shortly after that. The leeches themselves were all in a tizzy, a huge wooden crate in the centre of their living room, overflowing with books, and a second near the glass wall, where Carlisle was pulling out a painting as we walked in. "Maestà... They've sent us the lost pieces of Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maestà... I saw the altarpiece in the Duomo di Siena on my first trip to Italy..."

"What were you doing in a Roman Catholic church, Carlisle?"

"I went to see the altar. Our faiths may have been different, but that did not stop me from wanting to see Duccio's masterpiece. Whatever one's faith, you can still appreciate its beauty... The next day Hedi," the vampire gestured to the former Volturi guard, who was holding a small wooden box in her hands, "found me and took me to Voltera."

"Jocelin knew you had been looking..." she said faintly, not seeming all there. Weird, but whatever. That was vampires for you.

Jasper and Edward, meanwhile, were going at the box of books like children in a candy store. "Edward, an original copy of Montaigne's Essays... You'll enjoy this one. 'Non c'è così uomo il bene che se lui mettesse tutte le sue azioni e pensieri sotto lo scrutinio delle leggi, lui non meriterebbe appendere dieci volte in vita sua.'" Jasper declared, handing the book to his brother, who answered, "The irony is not lost on me," before delving back into the box.

Still in wolf form, I trotted into the kitchen, hoping someone would take pity on me and feed me. Instead, Kate was there, waiting for me. "Thank God you're back, Kiwi. I can't stand it, them going through all that old stuff. It's like, yes, cool, but we were all there. Well, most of us anyway. Why do I want to look at paintings I've seen before, or read musty old books? Tanya agrees with me, only she'd rather be going on still about what we're going to do with the whole pentaumvirate thing we're setting up, and how the Cullens need to move out of Forks and somewhere up north away from people, for like when we have to do anything with the nomads, so they don't eat people, and Esme's all for this 'cause she wants to build a castle and no one seems to understand that castles are so blasé but me, even though I thought Emmett would agree with me, but noooo, he wants a dungeon and coffins and a chapel with the Maestà on the altar so he can practice his preaching. So I went to go try to talk some sense into Irina, but she's doing the whole crazy-attic-girl routine, which is even more boring than castles or old boxes... Am I the only one who doesn't care if The Romanians are raiding Voltera? I mean, cool and all, I guess, if you like that stuff – which I don't – and all I can say is, if next thing you know Stefan and Vladimir are burning Rome, I told you so, 'cause those guys are like freaky weird. I'd cross the street to avoid them. And how was the party?" I rolled my eyes at Kate and lay down on the floor next to her, head on my paws, and prepared for the onslaught. "Oh, never mind. I found a Renaissance-style bridesmaid dress I want you to look at, very Nu-Georgette. I was thinking ivory with wisteria lace, to offset-"

Yes, I must have been a mass murderer in a previous life. That's the only way to explain my life.


	12. Lamed

"L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être."  
Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Voltaire's Brutus

* * *

"You remember what Rousseau wrote? 'To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. […] The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist.'"

"Carlisle," Maggie sighed, "you've got to give up this idea of yours that we're human and behave in human ways. You and your sons have done the scientific query and proved it – I won't pretend to understand your discoveries, y'know I've no interest in anything smaller than I am – and really must stop pretending that we are. Human, that is. We may have been born men, but we've become something else, and if our nature is more bellicose than our counterparts, while lamentable, it is our nature and nothing to be ashamed of. And if we must deny liberty to a few so for the safety and security of the rest of us, so be it."

"You forget what Rousseau says later, Father. 'In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed.'"

"Forget, no, Edward. I just remain ever-hopeful. To quote Demosthenes, 'It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.'"

"All government is unjust, Carlisle. Some are just less so than others."

"And that is true pessimism, my son. 'The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.' William Gladstone. If all we do is keep our existence hidden from those who should not know, I will be happy."

"Happy? With a government like that? Phish," the little Maggie snapped on her side of the table, laying down a domino next to the one Edward had placed a moment earlier. At least, I think that's what she did. As I was lying down on the couch, head in Jake's lap as he attempted (at my orders) to do his reading for English, and Kate seated on the floor, holding my feet in a vice-grip as she tested various shades of purple nail polish there (why exactly she was doing this, you'd have to ask her, but needless to say it made it hard to see around her), so couldn't see the table they were playing at well, but sill. "You've been around long enough to know that nothing ever gets accomplished in this world that doesn't follow the sword." It was really quite hilarious to see someone as ostensibly young as Maggie tell off Carlisle, who, if he couldn't pass for her father, could at least be a younger uncle. I knew, thanks to Kate, that Maggie had been a vampire for almost four centuries before the good doctor was even born, but it was still funny.

And Kate was three-hundred-something vampire and three human years older than her. "You're too young to be such a cynic. You'll get wrinkles if you don't stop soon."

Maggie, wisely, didn't comment on the absurdity of someone who is perpetually fourteen-years-old getting wrinkles, but rather said, "I was reading with Nessie last night..."

"Here we go," I whispered to Jake.

He looked up from Jane Eyre, which he'd been holding open to the same page for twenty minutes now, with undisguised thanks for the distraction, and whispered back, "Go with what?"

There really was no point in whispering, what with everyone in the room having super-hearing and could hear each other (and the leeches across the room) perfectly well over the Civil War documentary Jasper was watching as well, but it was habit, I guess. "Ness has been reading kid books this week in attempt to embrace her human half..."

Without pause, Maggie continued, "...and it was right about one thing: ''optimist' is a word which here refers to a person...who thinks pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. For instance, if an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, 'Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me if I am right-handed or left-handed,' but most of us would say something more along the lines of 'Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!'"

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, looking very much inclined to say, "I am surrounded by idiots and imbeciles," but was too Victorian to do so. Or maybe he was just realizing why parasites like himself shouldn't marry their food sources; a little late for that, but better now than never, I guess. Myself, I started laughing. Better than I expected by far – I'd been expecting something from Dr. Seuss, but this was ten times better.

"Maggie, darling, you and your parents have spent too long in your hole in the ground."

"And you've spent entirely too long in your forest in the north, and the Cullens have lived too long among humans. Unless you can find the first of us, the very first vampires, I doubt you'll ever find anyone that understands exactly who we are, what we are... But you cannot expect any government of vampires to behave like a human government, or like what the shape-shifters have."

"I refuse," Jake said, tossing down the school book and jiggling me a little in the process, causing me to frown up at him, "to be called a government."

"Who said she was talking about you, O Most High and Mighty Alpha?"

"Well, as I am, as you said, the Most High and Mighty Alpha, it was kinda obvious."

"They coulda been talking 'bout me."

"Sure, sure, Leah dear."

"Don't call me deer 'round the bloodsuckers. I don't want to be mistaken for desert."

Kate snorted, "Who'd want to eat wet dog?"

"Good thing to know that the dingo population of La Push will forever be safe then."

"I resent being called a dingo," Seth said, pulling a white bud from his ear as glanced up at us from his position, on his stomach with his legs crossed in the air behind him, by the door. "I'd at least like to see some Werewolf Pride from my own sister."

"'Werewolf Pride?' God, if you want us to have marches and wave, I dunno, neon orange flags and stuff, I'm officially disowning you."

"Ah, Leah, don't disown him on his birthday. That'd be just mean."

"Jake, you just want me to wait until he's finished his Chem homework so you can copy it."

"True – but I also don't like the idea of neon orange being the official 'Werewolf Pride' colour."

Kate, putting the cap back on "Midnight Mauve" and unscrewing the top of "Secret Encounter" with one hand while she continued to hold me victim to her nail polish testing with the other, "Don't worry, we can have Alice whip up something nice. She's been a touch bored since she can't drag Leah off to dress fittings."

"And what's your excuse?"

"My excuse for what, Kiwi?" I gestured emphatically at my feet. "This? We need to find the perfect shade for the wedding."

"I take it we're going with a purple theme?"

"If you'd been paying attention to me and Alice at all, you'd know that already."

"If I paid attention to half the things either of you said, I'd've gone crazy by now."

Deciding it was more fun to tease me than pretend to do homework, Jake assured me I was already criminally insane and that, "No one even half-way sane could come up with half the curses you do."

I was saved from responding as the front door opened, and Zack came rushing in, shaking bracken out of his hair and onto the floor as he looked about wildly for a moment before making a beeline for Jake and me. "Er, Charlie's coming," he said, but all in one breath so it sounded like "Rarleomin."

"English please, pup," Jake said, but Seth understood.

"He said Charlie's coming."

"Oh. Well, thanks for the heads-up, Zack-"

"Sue too."

"God," I breathed.

"Nice," said Seth. I guess it was – it was the kid's seventeenth birthday and all – but still. Mom. Here. With Charlie. It was going to be awful.

"Cool!"

I think the entire room spun to look at Kate as her own response echoed in the silence that suddenly engulfed the space as Major Control Issues decided that turning off the TV and going upstairs for a while was the better option compared to seeing what would happen if he so much as looked at my mother the wrong way. "Kate," I said slowly, "what ghastly, unbearable, and barely mentionable piece of royal apocrypha are you planning on sharing with her and what can be done to stop you?"

The vampire frowned, then smiled unnaturally widely, in a way that made me wonder when the last time she'd hunted was and said, "Całe kobiety stają się ich matki. Który jest ich tragedia." It seemed Doctor Dracula and Nurse Edward spoke Polish or whatever it was, 'cause they both started laughing in that tinkly, bell-like way of theirs at this – at which point she turned towards the mind-raper and, smiling even wider if it was possible, told him, "Żaden człowiek robi. Który jest jego." No idea what she said, but it caused him to stop laughing alright.

Maggie threw down her remaining dominoes. I heard one snap as it hit the table and clatter to the floor. "Crazy. That's what you all are. Crazy," and, with that, she flitted into the kitchen and, mostly likely, through the back door into the woods.

"Remind me to fill her shoes with pudding later," Kate told me after a moment, releasing my feet at long last.

"What kind of pudding?"

"Tapioca."

Seth groaned and started shoving all his school things back into his bag. "Why do all of our conversations end like this?" Seeing I was free, Jacob shifted, pulling me out of his lap and into his arms. I guess this distracted him, 'cause it was just slightly too long of a moment later he asked my brother what he meant. "Oh, never mind. See ya later, Zack," he said as the younger boy left to rejoin Embry on patrol.

Myself, I was more concerned with Kate. "Please remember, Katie darling, that this is my mother and her fiancé that are visiting. They wouldn't exactly understand if you started telling about your weekend in the Basilica of St. John Lateran with John XII."

"Benedict IX, actually. But I guess I see your point... What about Henry Stafford?"

"Who?" I asked with a sigh.

"Henry Stafford, Second Duke of Buckingham. Richard III's kingmaker. He threw poor Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury in the tower... Well, poor little Richard, anyway. Eddie was a bit of a snob, even in the tower. Comes from being crowned so young... or maybe it's just the name. Edwards tend to be a little stuck up, don't you think?"

"Yes, I think, and no, you can't tell Mom that either."

"Oh... What about-?"

"No."

"You haven't even heard what I was about to say."

"None of your sexcapade stories, okay?"

"How about Filipsde Schone? Can I tell her one of his 'sexcapade' stories?"

"There is something very wrong with you."

"That hurts, Kiwi, it truly does. See what I tell your great-grandchildren about you."

"You stalk my descendants and I swear I'll haunt you for the rest of your unnaturally long un-life."

"That's not much of a threat: I've been around a long time and not seen a ghost yet."

"Didn't see a shape-shifter until recently did you either? So just you wait and see."

"You do have a point," Kate said, taking the space on the couch my feet had previously occupied and deciding that this position was a good one to juggle bottles of nail polish in. "Been around a thousand years, I have, and spent most of that time amongst the courts of Europe, and never met a suczka as bad as you – and that includes Świętosława."

From upstairs a voice – Heidi's by my guess – called, "Tala inte om att hora framför mig!"

To which Kate responded, "I'm not in front of you, Heidi darling. I'm a whole floor below you," then in an aside to me, "Her favourite cousin was Gunhild Sveinsdotter's mother, and you, of course, know Gunhild married Sweyn II of Denmark." My blank face told her that I, of course, didn't. "Sweyn II's mother was Estrid Margarete Svendsdatter, who was the daughter of Sweyn Forkbeard and Sigrid the Haughty, aka Świętosława. Blames Sigrid for ruining Gunhild's marriage, which is just ridiculous of course, 'cause she'd been dead for thirty-three years easily by that point."

I didn't say it, but I decided that Maggie was right, and everyone I knew was criminally insane.

The mind-reader, being the mind-raping sodomite he is, gave a snort of laughter at this point and went to open the door, presumably because Mom and Charlie were here and it was the weird Victorian thing to do, but maybe also to get away from Kate, whose thoughts, sadly enough, have to be worse than what she actually says.

God, now that's a terrible thought. I snuggled closer to Jake to hide from it. He didn't complain. It'd been a tense twelve days since the the baby shower fiasco, a tense twelve days that, despite our twenty-four/seven patrolling, had resulted in absolutely nothing from Sam's pack. Not even an electronic sausage. I knew he was still angry that I hadn't let him beat Sam into a bloody pulp, no matter how much fun that woulda been to watch, but that was okay. Violence is the last recourse of the incompetent, and if we want to cling to our humanity, we have to give that up... Or else we become something else...

I've overheard Ed-weird and his father talking. They seem to think Jake and I are creating a new species. Maybe we are. But, God knows, all I've ever wanted since I first started phasing was to be human again. And people don't go around killing each other like animals. Most the time.

"'The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure'," the idiot in question said softly, so soft Mom and Charlie couldn't hear him, even as he was opening the door for them. "Chief Swan, Mrs. Clearwater, welcome."

Mom looked slightly fishy as she took in the absolute whiteness of La Casa de Leech. Her eyes almost bugged out as Kate, crossing the room in a split second, appeared in front of Charlie, grabbed his hand, shook it strongly (mostly likely giving him frostbite in the process), let go, and enveloped my mother in a hug she'd probably used in the past to trap bears with. "Allo, Shoshana. I am Ekaternia Dobryninva, but you can call me Kate. Eez vonderful meeting-"

"Kate, drop the accent. And you know that's not her name," I sighed, trying to find the energy to stand and pull her off Mom.

Edward, however, chided, "Nie daje biedna kobieta serce atak, Katachk," causing her to frown and resume her place, pouting, on the couch next to me.

"Jej serce dźwięk po prostu karzą mandatem,Eddie. Don't be such a worry wart. I know how to behave myself around humans."

Seth rolled his eyes and clambered off the floor to give Mom a hug. "Hey Mom. What you doing here?"

"Can't a woman visit her own children on one of their birthdays without people throwing a parade over it?"

"Don't bother, Mrs. C.," Jake said. "They throw parades here over the smallest things. See you've met Kate."

"Don't believe anything she tells you."

"I resent that, Kiwi, I really do. I thought you loved me."

"That was only an act to make Jake jealous, sorry."

Pretending to sniffle, "That hurts, Kiwi, that really does. See if I don't go Muriel's Wedding with yours."

"You have any idea what she means?" I asked Jake. He shook his head. So did Seth, Mom, and Charlie.

"Abba." We all turned to look at Edward. "She means Abba. She'll do it too."

"Let her. I don't care."

"You obviously never suffered through the '70s."

"Thank God. Now why don't you go act your age, Edward, and moulder somewhere?"

"You're just making it worse for yourself. Your-" Then the mind-raper paused, cocking his head like he was listening to something. "Now that's interesting. Carlisle, Kate, why don't we go upstairs and see if Alice needs any help."

Carlisle stood, and, after raising a querulous blonde eyebrow at his son, went upstairs. Kate, despite much glaring, didn't. "I wanna play with the puppies."

"The 'puppies' don't want to play with you."

I looked at Jake, to see if he'd managed to pick up on what I was obviously missing here. I was about to ask, when a knock resounded against the door and around the room.


	13. Meem

"And round we go, on crooked ways or straight, and well I know that ignorance is our fate, and this I hate."

Goethe's Faust

* * *

We all turned at looked at the door curiously. "Who the hell do we know that knocks?"

"Leah, don't curse."

I rolled my eyes at Jake, who gave a small laugh at this. "Sure, sure, Mom."

Loosing me for the moment, Jake manages to stand up without spilling me off the couch, and goes to the door. "It'd've been too easy just for Edward to tell us who was here and what was going on, wouldn't it?"

"Eddie keeps his own consul – he's rather a bit like Louis le Jeune that way, with the exception, of course, of not being obsessed with getting a son... At least some people can be happy with a daughter. Liked his third wife though, Adèle de Champagne. Very intelligent woman – smart enough to think we were crazy, Tanya, Irina, and I (though, of course, Tanya was calling herself Aelith then, and Irina was Adèle, after Louis's mother, Adèle de Maurienne, and I was Aenor) when we wanted to go to Constantinople with her daughter, Agnes... Still, we'd been in France for ten years and that was too long, and Constantinople was a nice change..."

"Kate..." I said slowly.

She didn't seem to hear me though, "Agnes's second husband, Andronikos Komnenos was like that too, what with the son-wanting and all. He had affairs with two of his nieces..." The vampire, not noticing the looks we were all giving her, turned to Seth. "Don't ever have affairs with your nieces, Seth. If you're going to sleep with them, at least marry them first..."

"Kate!" I said more loudly, jostling her leg with mine and probably breaking all the bones in my foot in the process. "What did I tell you about these stories?"

Kate, her amber-coloured eyes seeming far away, turned her head towards me but did not seem to see me at first. After a moment, and with somewhat forced enthusiasm, "I didn't mention sleeping with Andronikos myself, now did I? Or his successor, Isaac II? Though I do feel rather bad for doing that to his wife, Margaret. Her grandmother, Euphrosyne, was the third great-granddaughter of my cousin, Vladimir... which I suppose made us first cousins seven times removed..." And, with that, she went – even more oddly – silent.

"Kate's been around for a while," I told Mom and Charlie. "You probably want to stand over here while Jake gets the door, just in case Sam's pack has decided to play ding-dong-ditch-the-pipe-bomb or something like that."

To my surprised, they did without comment, while Jake, of course, said, "Glad to see you're concerned about my welfare, Leah," as he opened the door, giving me no time at all to share my comeback ("I'm Alpha female, remember? The pack can be all mine when you're gone," enter evil laughter) before it revealed, dumbfounding me, Colin and Brady.

Seth, being Seth, was the first to speak, giving a general, "Hey guys!" that make me wonder if the kid had ever heard of the term "self-preservation." It constantly surprises me that the kid has lived seventeen years now without having gone with some random stranger who promised him candy. "What'cha doing here?"

Brady, who'd always struck me as the more easy-going of the two stepped right on in and said, "We're defecting," then, promptly, added, "It smells like a perfume shop detonated in Willy Wonka's; how on earth do you stand it?"

Brady and Colin, however, seemed to have decided that the best way to make a good impression on their new pack (if they were being truthful about wanting to defect, and I didn't hold Sam above using suicide wolves – or, at least, decoys – in his plot to generally be the biggest asshole this side of the Mississippi. On either side of the Mississippi, really) was to wear actual clothes, by which I mean fairly unpatched cut-offs and surprisingly clean shirts. Which meant that, when Brady tried to take another step into the ultra-whiteness of the Cullens' living room, Jake was able to grab him (and Colin for good measure) by his shirt collar and tug him back.

More than a little snarl in his voice, "Does he know you're here?"

With which Charlie seemed to find some fault with, for he went, in a very parental way, "Jacob!" while I insisted, "Pat them down for explosives." Mom, hearing this, said in turn, "Leah!" which got Kate to say, very loudly, "Seth!" and cause everyone, especially Seth, to jump.

"What?" my brother said, less with anger than with shock.

"Nothing. I just thought we were playing the name game again. It's a lot more fun when you play it with more than three people."

"Shut up, Kate."

"I don't smell any explosives on them. 'Sides, Eddie dearest wouldn't have gone upstairs if he thought Esme's beautiful living room would be destroyed," my strange, strange Russian friend stood and openly gave the boys at the door the ol' hairy eye. "Now who are they?"

"Under age," said Jake blandly before turning back to Colin and Brady. "I don't believe Sam would just let you get up and leave."

"He didn't," said Colin in a way that made me think that, if he was phased, his ears would be flat against his head and his tail curled under.

"Explain."

"Jake, let go bro; it's only Colin and Brady," Seth, well, I don't want to say whined, 'cause that sounds bad in human context, but it's sorta true if you think of it in wolf ways – like Seth was trying to say, "I know I'm only Gamma here and you're Alpha, but this is my idea," - which, I must add, seemed second nature after all the time we'd spent as wolves. Probably weirded the hell out of Mom and Charlie, which is probably what prompted Mom, when happy-go-lucky Seth completed this thought, "if they try anything, between the three of us they won't get as far as the treeline," to exclaim, "Seth!" herself.

"What is it with humans always having to exclaim each other's names?"

"Kate, now's a bad time. Let the grown-ups handle this, why don't you?"

"You still haven't told me who they are."

"Colin and Brady. The no-touching role applies to them too."

"But-"

"You've Garrett."

"He's out hunting with Emmett."

"Don't you have any self-discipline?"

"I've not ate your parents."

I had the strangest friends, I swear. "For which I'm thankful. Now, d'you mind?"

"Oh, no, go right ahead. You're not bothering me."

I sighed and pulled myself off the couch, walking to stand a little behind Jake.

"Explain," Jake said again, letting go of both boys but standing with arms crossed in front of me, as if he wouldn't put it past them to try and go for my throat if given half a chance. Endearing? Yes. Annoying? More so. Given my recent track record with members of the other pack, though, it was probably a good idea...

Still as annoying as hell though.

With a smile directed at me (which earned him another growl), Brady did just that. "After the baby shower, Jared told us that Sam didn't want any of us to phase until he said it was okay. It was weird, but we listened. And that was over a week ago. Then last night I was at Colin's and lost track of the time, so I phased and cut through the woods to make it back in time, so Mom wouldn't ground me again. Thought they just forgot to tell us we could again – not the first time they've forgotten about us. Turns out they hadn't forgotten, they just didn't want us listening in."

"Listening in?" I echoed.

"Well, didn't want us to overhear them discussing the whole let's-be-one-pack thing, I guess. Jared's trying to convince Sam it's time to give up the ghost, but Sam and Paul aren't listening... I don't know the details. I phased out before they could realize I was there and told Colin this morning... And we decided that if Sam's not even going to tell us about something as important as that, we didn't want to be in his pack any more."

Colin pipped up then, adding, "Thus the defecting. We figured you'd take us, since you want one whole big pack..."

"I'll take you."

"Kate! Garrett. Find."

"I know like twenty languages, Kiwi. That makes sense in none of them."

I glared at her. "Kate." I said slowly – very, very, very slowly. "Listen to me very, very, very carefully: if you mention wanting to have sex with any of my pack again, I am going to have myself a Katie bonfire, kapesh?"

"But," she said oh-so-very-innocently, "they're not your pack."

Turning with an exasperated sigh (how do I end up in these conversations, I ask you?), "Jake?"

He frowned at the two boys standing in the doorway, then, a small smile crossing his face, nodded. "Welcome to the pack, guys."

"Cool!" Seth exclaimed, clapping the younger boys on the back, "Hey, I'm going to go show the guys the Rock and everything before Kate starts sexually assaulting them. See ya later Mom, Charlie!"

"I wasn't planning on assaulting anybody!" Kate yelled after him, still huffing on the couch. "I've never had to assault anybody to get them sleep with me. I've had my own cousin's great-great-great-great-grandchildren lusting after me-"

Seeing where this was going, Jake quickly said, "I think I'll help," and rushed after Seth, Colin, and Brady, leaving Mom, Charlie, and I to listen to this latest of Kate's memories.

"-Margaret of Hungary's brother was Andrew II, and his daughter by his second wife was Violant d'Hongria, and her fourth daughter was Isabella of Aragon-"

"Kate..."

"-and her son was Philippe le Bel, whose third daughter was Isabella of France-"

"Kate."

"-and her oldest son was Edward III, and who do you think was the 'Alice Perrers' who was his mistress? Hmm? My own... first cousin twelve times removed, not that he knew it, but-"

"Kate!"

At last blinking, Kate turned and saw my exasperated face now but a half-pace in front of her. "I'm doing it again, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't mean to?"

"Probably not."

"Oh... that hurts, you know."

"It was meant to."

"You're no fun. I think I'll go bother Irina. See if she'll come out of the attic, you know... She always did have a soft spot for English royalty, you know... and Prince William and Prince Harry are my cousins thirty-four times removed... Maybe we can plan a field trip..." And, before I could roll my eyes, she was gone.

"Sorry 'bout Kate. She's been in a strange mood the last couple of days. I personally think she's more worried about Irina than she'd care to admit. But yeah, like I said, don't listen to a word she says and you'll be fine. Nice seeing you and all. Bel-"

Mom, however, wasn't going to let me go all that easily. Oh no. She'd subjected herself to the leeches' house, and she was damn well going to see one of her children while she was here. "Let's talk, Leah."

"Er?" How about not? Not's good with me.

But Charlie was heading upstairs to look for his daughter and Mom was indicating his vacated spot on the couch before I could come up with a good reason that she'd believe for letting me leave without talking. 'Cause when your mother searches you out for a talking-to, you know nothing good is going to be said. "I'm concerned about you."

I'm concerned you don't realize that any vampire in the house is going to hear every word you say, and everyone in the pack will see my memory of it. "You shouldn't be. Carlisle says the twins seem to be doing okay, and it shouldn't be long now before they're born – maybe another week or so, at the rate they're growing – so I'll be back to normal in no time. Jake and I have even talked about names. He's going to pick out two guy names, I'll pick out two girl's ones, Kate will take the middles, and we'll go from there..."

"That's not what I mean, honey."

"Oh?" The twins know I don't like being referred to as food (not even by my own mother), and protested a little at that. I wished they wouldn't. It made it very hard not to get mad at Mom, who surely knew this. "Well, we've got plans for after they're born too. The bloodsuckers think they'll grow up normal enough, but probably run hot like we do, and who knows if we'll be able to impress upon them the importance of not phasing in public? So, since Jake is the one with a marketable skill, the Cullens are going to loan us money so he can start a garage, and I'll just play house 'till they're old enough, or I can get one of the pack to babysit. Alice has even said, if I'm desperate for a day job, I can organize their basement for them, and that could take years. And I know you're probably going to say something about how you didn't raise me to mooch off of blood-drinking parasites, but at least its a plan. You can consider it compensation for us playing guard dog for the last few months." Or not. I really don't care what you think, Mom. I mean, it's only taken you how many of those months to build up the courage to stop by and lecture me?

Okay, maybe that's wrong. I really do love Mom. But, God, she can be annoying as hell sometimes. Kinda like Kate but, at least, thank God, Mom doesn't tell me about her sexual conquests. Shudder. Gag and shudder. Thank God for the small miracles. Like Colin and Brady. They coulda decided just to stay with Sam, or let Sam figure out what he was going to do, but they came anyway. Like the fact that Charlie is at least a decent guy and, if Mom has to remarry, she could do a lot worse than Charlie Swan – even if his daughter is dumber than a box of rocks for becoming a vampire...

I paused in my thoughts, waiting for Edward to chastise me for such a thought about his dear, darling wife. Nothing came, though, and my pause only served to let Mom say, "That's wasn't what I wanted to talk about either, though it is good to know you and Jake have a plan."

"Well, you know... Billy's pension won't go far trying to feed four werewolves."

"Pension?"

"Never mind. What did you want to talk about?"

"Sam."

I stood up. "Why do you want to talk about that cum-drinking, parrot-humping piece of rhino shit for?"

"Leah! Language!"

"You're right – that was way too PG to describe him, but it was the best I could come up with at a moment's notice.  
But Sam? Of all the reasons you could come over, you come over to talk about him? Well, newsflash, Mom," I unclenched my fists and spread them, as if trying to mimic a bulb-flash with them, "I'm over him. Been over him. Under, around, and through him as well. If you don't believe me, ask the mind-raper upstairs or one of the pack if I've thought about Sam that way in ages."

"Then what was the other day about then, you kissing him?"

"Me? Kissing him? I was trying to patch things up with Emily, then soon as she leaves for two seconds he tries to shove his tongue down my throat. I had to eat mints for a week after that."

"You shouldn't have-"

"I'll tell you what, Mom," I snorted, deciding I've had enough of this and stomping angrily to the door, "you shouldn't come and try to Elder in things you don't understand. It just makes us both angry. Now, if you don't mind-" I threw the door open.

And nearly walked into the person on the other side of it. "What the fuck do you want?"


	14. Nun

"Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true.  
Some smaller countries are neutral."

Robert Orben

* * *

"Well, this is just great. Fantastic even. The two humans that drive me crazy like no other, right here in the leeches' living room. Is this a conspiracy? 'Cause I think it is. A grand conspiracy to drive me crazy. What is it going to take to convince you to that I'm OVER Sam, that the last thing in the world I would do is willingly kiss him – and I include going the Oedipal route and scratching my eyes out on my list of things I'd rather do. So why doesn't anyone seem to the fucking hornet-hell believe me? You know what?" I shouldered my way through the door, pausing only long enough to grab a muffin off the tray Emily nervously held in front of her. "Like, plus five for working up the courage to come to Vampire Villa, minus several mil for the both of you for thinking that that I'm still pining over an idiot who was ass enough to cheat on me with my cousin in my own house, especially when, hello, I've only been," I gestured at my stomach with the muffin, not caring that one, usually, didn't share such details in one's mother, especially in a house full of bat-eared leeches, "going at it like rabbits-"

From upstairs came Alice's voice, 'cause I guess she had nothing better to do than listen in on people, or, maybe, since she couldn't see anything involving werewolves, we struck her as the most interesting soap opera she'd ever witnessed, "Or dogs."

I paused long enough to glare at the ceiling before turning back to Emily, who clearly didn't understand what exactly she'd walked into but was tearing up nonetheless, and Mom, who was playing the part of an angry, somewhat abashed, and looking-her-cool mother to perfection. I've reached a new low if rather than spend time with these two, who used to mean so much to me, I preferred the company of a bastard, a paedophile, my brother, and a handful of half-grown pups to them. Defiantly a new low. I mean, have you ever heard some of their thoughts? I mean, really. They were debating what colour lightsaber they would have if they were jedi. And God help the person who pointed out to them that, like clothes, lightsabers weren't likely to stick with them when phased. Really. The conversations I got involved in.

Le sigh.

I continued, "-or dogs with my husband like," I made to gesture with the muffin again, changed my mind, and bit into it. Blueberry. Yum. Where was I? Oh yes. I sighed out loud this time. "I don't know why I bother with you two. Nice to see you, thanks for the muffin, love you both – blah, blah, blah. Bye."

And I shut the door in Emily's face. Or mine, I guess, since she was inside now and I wasn't.

But of all the things I had to deal with! Vampires with personal boundary issues and idiot ex-boyfriends and...

Beach house. Alcoholic beverages. Sunset. It was worth it all, if it could make that dream come true. I could handle it if it meant that, one day, Jake and I could have our stupid, ridiculous, impossible happy ending like I wanted. And there would be no more vamps bothering us, except for maybe Kate, and even then only in small doses. The world would be perfect then...

God, I missed alcohol at moments like these. Stupid werewolf hormones that suddenly decided to let me get pregnant. I mean, really. I needed to have a word with the mystical forces in charge of these things. Several, actually, and few of them kind.

Still. I couldn't begrudge the mystical forces for letting up on me for once and letting me have the twins after all. So maybe I had no idea how to take care of a baby and had just alienated the only two people who might have any sort of idea (their own fault; shouldn't have been idiots, should they?) what to do with one. Stupid Mom. Stupid Emily. I didn't want to fight them. I just wanted some peace and quiet. I've moved on. Why can't they?

Then again, I'd hardly seen them since September and, back then, I was still rather a broken mess. Not that I'm not a broken mess now, but I'm slightly more put together at this point. Their own damn faults – if either of them had stood up to Mr. High-and-Mighty Sam so that, maybe, I dunno, the two packs could get along and not now be acting like wild dogs with territory problems. But no, it always had to be my fault, didn't it? My fault that I phased, meaning my ex and my ex-favourite-cousin had to put up with me. My fault I'd initially phased in front of Dad, giving him a heart attack (though I did happen to agree with that one – though Seth and I had been arguing at the time, and he'd phased too). My fault that Sam couldn't seem to deal with me hooking up with anyone else, let alone marrying them and finding myself knocked up by them, and had decided that killing and molesting me – thankfully separately – were the best ways to go about it. I could only hope "it," whatever it was, made sense in his own head, mostly 'cause the idea of a crazy person trying to do those things was worse than a sane person trying to. Marginally. Don't ask me why.

Easily a mile into the woods now, I decided that a nearby oak was the perfect place to sit and stew in my anger for a while. Well, that, and I was starting to get a terrible stomach ache. I thought of the muffin I'd taken from Emily. It, obviously, must have been poisoned. Sam's idea of a solution for the two pack problem.

I would just have to think of something devious in return. Maybe Frankenstein and his monsters had something I could use to give them boils or something – no! Fleas! Find some, infect Sam... buy up all the flea dip in the county and hold it hostage... It could work... I think. I'd need Alice's help, and Emmett's, and-

As I was standing to head back to the Cullen's (and sneak in the back way), I felt a gush of water trickle down my legs; I'd had enough What to Expect when you're Expecting books foisted on me to know that water breaking was a sign of labour. That realization, however, was the second thought that came to my mind. The first was the knowledge that Alice would quite possibly kill me if it ruined my clothes. "Shit," I cursed. She may have only been a pixie, but she was a terror when it came to clothes.

And that had to be a contraction. "Dog-headed, pig-rutting, rat-chasing, fork-tongued son of a bitch's shit!" I decided I really didn't like this labour thing at all. Worst part of the whole pregnancy thing, I could tell already. This coming from me, who had to spend hours at a time phased 'cause the twins thought it'd be fun to play pups in Mommy's tummy. Just think about it.

Oh, no, think about this: I could go back to the manor, put up with Kate, Mom, Emily, and every other annoying person there... or I could go to The Rock and languish there on my own, without benefit of fun, numbing meds.

There was no decision, really. I did not want to hear about Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen's complications during the (very public) delivery of her daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte (again, even though the Denalis had been in, well, Denali for almost a century at the time. I can only assume that Kate had gone to Paris "to take in the fashions" or some other nonsense and decided to pop by the palace in the way only former vampire courtiers could); or how Mom had been in labour for twelve hours with me, required two epidurals, and had been holding onto Dad's hand for so long that, when you let go at one point, he slipped and banged his head on the corner of the hospital bed, giving him a concussion; or anything from Emily about how she was "so happy" for me and would love to be a part of my children's life, preferably by being their godmother or, at the very least, a favoured aunt and, as much as I was willing to forgive my cousin a lot if it meant I got to spend some time around a non-magical person, today's events had decidedly made me rethink exactly how much I was willing to forgive. So, groaning and spitting curses under my breath, I made my way to the Rock.

My curses had gotten to strings of seven phrases and more by the time I made it there. "Jake!" I shouted as soon as my husband came into view. "I am fucking going to kill you for doing this to me, you son of a toothpaste-sniffing, pot-smoking, detergent-drinking, NASCAR-driving, demented leprechaun and a half-a-bottle of moonshine."

They boys had been lounging under the lean-to the leeches had built for us. Jake stood up at hearing my voice, and Seth scrambled to his feet, ready to keep me from doing anything I would later regret. Killing Jake would put a crimp in my plans for a happily-ever-after, I admit...

Jake did not seem to understand the immediate danger his life was in and, sussing what ailed me, broke into the biggest, goofiest smile I'd ever seen. "Leah! You okay? The babies coming? Why did you come here, you shoulda-"

I glared at him. This, naturally, didn't phase him, and I decided I needed to work on glaring if he was becoming immune to it. Curses! Never mind, I was in too much pain right now to berate him properly. So I settled for, "Death. You. Soon."

"You know you love me."

I glared at him again and, with relief, collapsed under the lean-to. "Die."

He rolled his eyes and turned to the others. "Go get Carlisle."

I told him to go to hell instead. "No leech is coming anywhere near- Hey! Seth! Come back here! You too, Colin, Brady. No one is-"

Seth, not pausing as he turned around, "Be back soon," cheerfully called before running to catch up with the new additions to our pack.

"I am not," I said, still glaring at Jake, who seemed in a bit of a happy daze, snapping out of it only when I started tugging off my ruined dress, "on of Dracula's science experiments," and, with that, phased.

I must say though, comparatively, contractions hurt a lot less as a wolf than a human. I'm told it's because recent evolution has favoured walking upright and large brain masses in people and the birth-giving parts haven't caught up yet, but whatever. Sure, it was messy, and God was it weird to want to lick the twins clean, even if they came out little furballs themselves, but I decided that it was by far a better experience than I'd seen in movies, or in Jake's memory's of Ness's birth. No one died or was concussed or anything.

As soon as the babies were born, Jasper, who was being informed by Kate, who came to the lean-to dispute my best attempts with her phone on speaker back to the rest the leeches, handed Seth, Alice, and Benjamin manilla envelopes coming out to $2884.30 each.

Coming in at three pounds, two ounces with a stock of grey fur was my daughter. She looked the picture of a wolf pup, which was to say the lupine version of a bouncing baby. The names I'd originally picked out per my agreement with Jake – Helene and Susannah – faded from mind as soon as I saw the crescent-shaped spot of white fur framing her left eye. Diane, I mumbled across the connection to Jake, who'd phased to be with me. We have a daughter, Jake.

He phased out long enough to tell Seth, Kate, and Carlisle. One down, one to go.

"One down," said Kate into her phone, not knowing Jake was telepathically sharing the same sentiment with me. "A girl," (she paused here to let the excitement of the undead on the other end of the line calm down enough for her next words to be heard; she absent-mindedly patted Jake's head during her wait), "Diane Arcadia."

Thirty-seven minutes later and three ounces heavier, with a tawny-and-grey pattern to his fur, came my son and, with him, my great relief. I was awake just long enough to hear him pronounced Daniel Mateau and placed to feed beside his sister.

Diane and Daniel... I thought I heard Jake beam as he curled up beside me, and I wondered just what we were getting ourselves into.


	15. Samekh

"Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are  
…condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one."

Tom Stoppard Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

* * *

"I personally find it hilariously funny."

"You find your own tail funny."

"And you find Arthur funny, so we all know how well your mind works."

I growled at the both of them to shut up before they woke Di and Dan.

Quil, obviously thinking I meant something else, turned from Seth to me and snapped, "For the last time, I am not a paedophile!" waking up the twins.

With a glare the proved it was only Jake becoming immune to them, I looked down on the two small pups at my side. It'd been two days, and no one seemed to have any idea how to get the pups to phase into human form. We knew they had to have them, but, from the petulant looks they seemed to be giving me every time I, er, suggested it, they didn't want to. I didn't much care if they wanted to spend the rest of their lives in wolf form – well, not at this point anyway, 'cause it seemed that the one thing no one had ever mentioned was how tired this whole birth thing made you, and I was content (for now, at least) to flop lazily under the lean-to and try to figure out what I was supposed to do with werewolf cubs. They seemed to be at the eating-and-sleeping stage, with was fine enough, but when did you move on to showing them how to walk, talk, hunt? When do you start taking them on patrols? Vampire fighting?

And then there was the question of vaccinations. Carlisle said Di and Dan needed HBV shots soon, and DTaP, Hib, IPV, PVC, and a whole bunch of other alphabet soup things that I didn't bet the point of right off the bat but I was told every child had to have. Emmett, having gone to veterinary school sometime in the '80s, wanted to give them adenovirius vaccinations, some more for hepatitis and distemper, parvovirus, and a whole bunch of other things that I hadn't heard of, never having a dog. What the hell was I supposed to do? I mean, the pack had all survived well enough with just the human ones, but, as Emmett pointed out, none of us had been little when we first started phasing, and probably should be vaccinated just to cover all bases. Seriously!

Kate wasn't helping at all. She wanted to take a group of us to Kiev, so the twins could be baptised in St. Volodymyr's Cathedral – the one built in honour of her cousin, - never mind that none of us were Ukrainian Orthodox or had any desire to go to Ukraine, nor was it likely said cathedral would actually baptise wolf cubs, even if we wanted it done. It disappointed her greatly, and she and Garrett had been gone for several hours since I told her, quite clearly, it wasn't happening, while the cubs climbed over one another in my arms. Only Alice knew where they'd gone, and she wasn't sharing. Not even with Jasper.

Jake was another matter. Oh, the first day he was ecstatic, cow-jump-over-the-moon-esque. Today, not so much. And not just because he'd had to go to school today (on threats I'd never sleep with him again if he didn't, which he should've known better than to believe) and leave me without any pack to "guard" me and the cubs. In short, the big crimp in his jive (yes, I just used the word jive, probably because it seems a proper 'cause Kate had set an alarm on phone so that, every seventy-three minutes, a different ABBA song would play; the I would kill her next time I saw her) was Billy.

Actually, it was Rachel, who had popped by during lunch and, though had kindly pulled Jake out of the cafeteria, had not gone far enough that her voice didn't travel. So it was when she told him that Billy had sent her to find out why he had to hear of his grandchildren's birth when Emily called to congratulate him this morning. His response, I understand, was simple forgetfulness. His answer to his classmates, when they tried to make a big deal of it when he went back to try to eat, was that was precisely what he was trying not to do. After which things apparently got worse, as a thousand questions, innuendos, and whatnot were sent his way, leaving him unable to enjoy pizza day.

I honestly think that part upset him the most.

Judy, who was sitting next to me, glared at Quil too. "Methinks you protest too much," she managed in all seriousness before bursting into (very girlish, it must be said) giggles. She picked up Diane, who was trying to burrow deeper into my side, and put her in the basket my Beta and my brother had brought. "Did you bring a red riding hood? If I'm going to be bringing a basket of wolf pups to Grandpa Billy, I think I need a red riding hood. What do you think, Aunt Leah?" she asked me, tickling Daniel as she added him to the basket.

I phased out, tired enough not to laugh at Seth as he immediately put his hands in front of his face and screamed, "MY EYES!" though, it must be said, I did manage a small grin as I pulled on the clothes Alice had sent with the basket. Sweat pants and a t-shirt. Designer sweat pants and t-shirt, to be sure, but I think I might have lost it if she'd tried sending something fancier. No red capes though. Very sad.

"I don't mind," Quil said, taking a smart step back. "Gotta say, Seth, even after twins your sister is still a looker."

Hands still over his eyes, Seth turned towards the voice, "Gross, man! Don't say these things to me! And don't you have an imprint to be watching Dora the Explorer with right now?"

"Claire doesn't like Dora – and it wouldn't be on for another hour anyway. 'Sides, just 'cause I've Claire doesn't mean won't look when Lee decides to go nudist colony on us."

"That doesn't mean you have to tell me these things. I don't want to know about any of them. Kapish?"

"Does Ruth know how much of a prude you are?"

"I-"

I, tactfully, interrupted by cuffing both of them outside their heads. "Idiots," I cursed, taking the basket from Judy, who was still laughing, and turning my glare from Quil and Seth to my children. "I don't suppose either of you feel like phasing, do you?"

Di gave me her best puppy eyes impression while her twin yawned in my direction. I gave them an exasperated sigh and dared Quil or Seth to say anything.

Neither boy was exactly the freshest doggy biscuit in the bag, though, and Quil, obviously having a death wish, wondered aloud, "Maybe they can't phase back."

I didn't want to think that. No, in fact, I refused to believe it. The twins were half me and half Jake, and if they had half the stubbornness between them that Jake and I each had naturally, it was likely they just liked being cubs and had decided it was worth pissing off their parents to have a bit of fun. Or whatever reason made sense in their two-day-old heads. I mean, we were mythical creatures. Our heads didn't work right. Werewolves, for instance, shared heads and did the annoying imprinting thing. Vampires did things like play three-dimensional chess and plot ways to have sex with various members of the royal family.

Speaking of that, the whole telepathic-werewolf thing didn't work so well on newborns. Oh, you could see their thoughts alright, it was just that the thoughts themselves were the problem. They tended to make whoever was listening too closely very tired. And thirsty. Don't forget that.

Still, Quil's suggestion, or idea, or sick joke – whatever it might be – put me in a sour mood all the way to the Rabbit. Seeming to realize this, Nessie was already waiting by the car when we got there, looking the part of a cute kindergardener – wearing a candy red jacket, hood pulled up over her bouncing brown curls and carrying a basket of her own, which, from the smell of it, was filled with some of Esme's blue ribbon Tex-Mex. "It's a bribe," she said in all honesty, having some trouble not bouncing in excitement – her Aunt Alice's influence, I'm sure, the poor kid.

"A bribe for what?"

"Nothing much. Nothing at all really."

"I'm not sneaking into the Smithsonian and stealing The Dead Sea Scrolls for you."

"They're housed in the Heikhal HaSefer at the Muze'on Yisraelanyway – in the Givat Ram district of Yerushaláyim. It's like a twenty hour flight with two layovers, if we get lucky, and I doubt we'd be back in time."

"In time for what?"

"It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. It's on on Thursday, and there's no way we'd be able to find a quick way there and back, plus into the Heikhal HaSefer, in time, and they're not real big on Easter, the Yehudim, and I really want to see it. Uncle Emmett tells me it's a riot. So maybe some other time."

I raised my eyes to the heavens in supplication. What did I do in a past life to earn this? What, really? Was I Josef Mengele? One of the MKULTRA or Unit 731 guys? Someone tried for war crimes at Nuremberg or Khabarovsk certainly, 'cause there was nothing else that could explain all the things that happened in my life. I mean, really. Vampires with venereal diseases (or so I thought – I never hoped to find out myself), hybrids planning thefts of irreplaceable artefacts around their television viewing schedule, and in-laws demanding to see their grandchildren despite the fact said grandchildren were wolf cubs at the moment. Shaking my head at the thought of it, "Bribe for what then?"

"I want to go with you to visit Billy."

"The treaty-"

"Please, Aunt Leah. I promise I'll be good."

Thinking of Sam's reaction to seeing Nessie, I smiled not entirely comfortingly, and drawled, "You are only half vampire."

"Yea! Thank you Aunt Leah! Thank you!" she was bouncing in true Alice fashion now. Her poor parents. Well, poor Edward anyway – the mind-raper was decent enough to know he was an ass, as opposed to his leech-loving wife, was just an idiot. I was reduced to pitying sadomasochistic Bambi-killers now. The things I do for Jake, honestly. If he wasn't such a good kisser... Okay, if he wasn't a good lot of things, kissing just happening to be the one that came to mind. If he wasn't so good at a couple of other things, I'd not be dealing with this whole cubs-who-refused-to-phase problem either, but that, I supposed, was neither here nor there. "You won't regret this!"

Seth, who was climbing into the front seat, gave me a look that said, "This is going to end badly," but took the basket of food from Ness nonetheless and began riffling through it.

"Can I drive, Aunt Leah?" Judy was giving me her own puppy dog interpretation, complete with wide eyes and trembling lower lip.

"You're only twelve."

"Thirteen next month. 'Sides, I look old enough to drive."

"Looks can be deceiving," I said in my sageliest voice, pushing her into the back seat, where Quil and Ness were already waiting, humming, if I wasn't mistaken, "Fernando," almost as if she knew what her cousin had done to my phone; Kate would pay. I handed Judy the basket with Di and Dan in it. "Now be a fairy godmother and hold the twins for me."

I could see her pouting in the rear-view mirror as I climbed into the driver's seat. "You can be so mean sometimes, Aunt Leah, you know that?"

"Mean? This is me being smothering. The twins are just cubs and I have the most driving experience of anyone here," I turned the key, "so I drive."

"Control freak."

"Yes," I conceded, "but still your Alpha."

"For now."

Laughing, "What, Judy, planning a coup?"

"Me? Never. You may be positively insane, but you're still my Aunt Leah. Just saying, though, there're three of us now, and Di is actually a – what do we want to call this? Princess? Junior Alpha? Alpha-in-Waiting?"

"I personally like Tsesarevna myself," Nessie told us. "It would probably make Cousin Kate happy too."

I rolled my eyes at this. "Whatever you want, Ness darling."

Judy gave a fake pout, "What about me, Aunt Leah? Here I was feeling all special, and now here Di and Dan have come, taking my place. However will I survive this heartbreak?"

This time, I gave a snort of laughter. "Tell you what, Judy, I'll lock you and Zack in a closet until you work everything out, and then you won't have time to worry about politics."

"Politics?" snorted Quil in return, "is that what they're calling it these days?"

Nessie, knowing Judith's arms were full with the twins, who seemed to be trying to crawl out of the basket from what I could see, hit Quil on the shoulder for her. "You really shouldn't say things like that," the girl explained when Quil turned towards her, mouth gaping, seeming to think of Ness's violence, hereto non-existent, as my fault. Which it probably was. "As you are rather bound to your imprint, it will be – at the very least – another dozen years before Claire Young is likely to see you in anything other than a filial affection."

"What?" Quil blinked.

Seth snickered. "I think she's saying Judy's probably going to get some long before you ever do." Get some? Out of all the euphemisms my brother could have used, he chose that one? And here I was thinking I was the only corrupting influence on him when it turned out that school of his was, by far, the worse offender. "Probably means that her and Nahuel'll have kids before Claire's even out of middle school too."

"Nahuel and I are just friends, I'm not even a year old yet, and you have a sicker mind than even Uncle Emmett, Uncle Seth."

"Nessie, honey," I said as we entered La Push, "there are five vampire-human hybrids in the world, and you are the only one not related to him. Add that to the fact he somehow managed to watch Blue's Clues, The Virgin Suicides, and C-Span with you in one sitting without going insane, and is learning Hebrew for you... I think it's as about as much of a given he likes you as it is that Sam's a two-timing rat bastard with only two braincells and a single shiny penny to his name."

"You have serious issues, Aunt Leah."

"And so do you, but at least mine are only quarterly."

"What?"

"The subscription, the one for all my issues. Mine is quarterly, whereas yours, I'm sorry to say, is the weekend subscription – the ones with the big extra sections and colour cartoons on Sundays."

I turned onto Billy's block. I didn't need supersight to recognize what was going on in his front lawn, but it certainly made the details all too clear: Jake was there, Brady not to far away, facing off against a fuming Sam, a furious Paul, and a trying-to-be-diplomatic-and-failing-terribly Jared. "Shit," I groaned. It never could be easy, could it? I mean, really, all I'd wanted was for my kids stop being wolves for a bit so we could visit their grandpa without any issues. Gunning down on the gas, I warned, "Hold on tight everyone," before aiming the car for The Idiot and his henchmen.

"Leah! Don't kill them!"

"Them! What the fuck about us?"

"I'm not going to kill them – not with the Rabbit anyway," I said, my voice calm in contrast to their worried tones, and slammed on the breaks as I drifted into the driveway behind Sam, Paul, and Jared. As soon as I'd pulled the parking break, I flung open the door, grabbed the basket of food Esme had packed for us, and, jumping out, flung it at Sam's head.

Causally, as I went back to the Rabbit and took the other basket from Judith before joining Jake, my husband commented. "Subtle much, Lee."

"I'm just getting pissed off by people trying to make my day worse. Do I even want to know why Sammy boy decided to annoy us today?"

"He finally realized where Colin and Brady went to. And it's been two weeks since the shower."

"Hmm," I mused, "took him long enough. Well, have fun. I'll be inside if you need me."

"You don't want to help?"

"Not really. I'm tired, Di and Dan are probably hungry, and there's only so many idiots I can deal with in a day. Do try to keep the yelling down, won't you? Oh, and if you have to phase-"

"Do it in the backyard where no one can see us, I know. Have fun."

Jared looked like he might be laughing at us if he wasn't so busy trying to convince Sam to give up the ghost already. "...not worth it. As much as you hate it, Jake and Leah had nothing to do with-"

"Nothing to do with it?" Paul snarled. "Emily wouldn't have called off the wedding if it wasn't for their little show at the baby shower."

I paused on the steps. Emily finally realized the two-timing dirt-bag she was getting married to was a two-timing dirt-bag as likely to skip out on her as he had me, and probably with another member of one of our extended family. I didn't have any more girl-cousins, but maybe he'd settle for running off with Adam's girlfriend, Lydia, or David's wife, Melissa. 'Cause God knew I'd not willingly come near that piece of toad-sniffing, rat-fucking horse shit with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole, though, remembering the tonguing incident, I might make that just wouldn't willingly come near Same ever.

'Bout damn time.


	16. Ayin

"We've lost something vital, I tell you. When we lost it, we lost the ability to make good decisions.  
We fall upon decisions these days the way we fall upon an enemy — or wait and wait,  
which is a form of giving up, and we allow the decisions of others to move us.  
Have we forgotten that we were the ones who set this current flowing?"

Frank Herbert Children of Dune

* * *

Nessie's done the math for me: if Jake's mom's dad and Sam's mom's mom were brother and sister, they're second cousins. And if Mom's dad and Sam's mom's dad were brothers, we're also second cousins. Which means that Sam is the twin's double second cousin once removed. (This also means, since Jake's mom's mom was Old Quil's sister, that Quil's just their plain old second cousin – once removed – as well. The twins are their own fourth cousins too, 'cause dad's dad's mom was Old Quil's aunt... but that's neither here nor there.)

All things considered, I rather thought, being as wonderfully close cousins as we all were, we could all bite the bullet and get along. Knowing that this was little more than a pipe dream, I rather wished they'd all fall in line, 'cause Jake was Alpha and we'd two little Alphas-in-Waiting (or something like that), and it pretty much guaranteed that, no matter how you looked at it, that Sam would never, ever, have reason to have to be Alpha of anyone ever again.

That being said, Jake shoulda just taken the position when it was in the offering, right after he phased. It woulda made all of our lives just that much easier. But he didn't, so they weren't, and it all ends up with me holding a basket of puppies and trying to explain to their grandfather why they're not human at the moment.

I spared a look out the window. They were yelling now, and I could hear Quil asking why we couldn't all just be friends and Nessie muttering something about uneducated werewolves under her breath as she entered the house. "I have decided," she continued, closing the door and coming into the living room, "that it is the human blood, not the wolf, in shape-shifters that makes them so violent. After all, wolves were not the ones who invented the falchion or the arquebus, the howitzer or- well, you obviously get the picture," and she, obviously, had seen my face, and, slightly put out, scampered onto the couch. "Hello Mr. Black. I'm Renesmee Cullen, but you can call me Ness, or Nessie – everyone else does. I have heard a lot about you. Did you really threaten to cut off Uncle Jacob's allowance if he didn't get Aunt Leah pregnant?"

"What!" I sputtered, feeling my cheeks burn bright red. "Ness, dear, you really gotta stop listening to Kate."

"Actually, Uncle Emmett told me this. I wanted to know if it was true."

I shook my head. "Vampires are terrible gossips," I explained to Billy, turning away from the window and back towards him. Setting the basket on the table, "I think it's because their own lives are so terribly dull. Emmett's becoming a priest now and wants to hold a sunrise service on Easter, just because it's something they've never done before, and so what do we have to do next Sunday? Drag ourselves out of bed and humour him. I suppose it's better than forcing us to dress up as Easter Bunnies or something like that, but, knowing my luck, that'll just come after." Oh well. They fed us, didn't try to eat us, and, generally, weren't altogether bad folk. I still can't believe I find myself saying that, but Kate's decent, and Alice and Emmett and Carlisle and Esme weren't too bad and, as for the rest, they mostly ignored me and I returned the favour. It worked. Even if Irina the Insane was living in the attic and someone occasionally brought a deer up there so she didn't go loca on us. That was kinda weird. "You probably don't want to hear about vampire weirdness, though. It is, most certainly, very weird. But, oddly enough this time, not as weird as our weirdness." I reached my hand into the basket and pulled out a striped ball of fur. "Billy, your grandson. Dan, your grandpa."

Now, most people, I think, would be kinda freaked out if you handed them a wolf cub and said it was their grandson. Not Billy though. Billy, he was cool. Strange, yes, but terribly okay with pretty much everything life threw his way. "Dan, huh?"

"Daniel Mateau, if you want to be specific about it. We let Kate do the middle names. I think she thought 'Daniel Matthew' sounded too odd... But, then again, she was gunning for the name Ursula for a while, so who honestly knows?" Seeing his twin trying to scamper over the side of the basket, I picked her up and handed her over to Billy. "And this one's Diane Arcadia. That one I don't understand, but hey, they have names, so I guess it's all good."

"Now," said Nessie smartly, "you just got to get them to phase."

Obviously trying to be helpful (or something), Billy suggested."Have you tried asking?"

I glared at him. He seemed as immune to it as his son. It must be something in the Black genes. Knowing my luck, Di and Dan would be too, and then where would I be? And, another thing, their alliterative names? Far too cutesy for me – though we did pick out names separately, and I changed my mind at the last minute, but Jake could've chosen something different – but they worked, I guessed. Next thing you know, the next pair will have two "E" names, and the ones after that "F" and, well, you get the picture. Not, I might add, that I'm planning on ever giving birth again. Jake can do the sea horse thing if he wants, but two are more than enough for me. "Of course."

"Have you tried asking politely?"

"And here Jake said you liked me," I replied dowerly, turning to steal a glance out the window. I'd never thought that I'd get married (well, not after the whole-stupid-boyfriend-imprints-on-stupid-cousin debacle, but, then again, even if that had never happened, I'd've laughed him in the face if he ever asked, but the fact remained) or have kids, let alone have twin werewolf cubs to deal with, and, let me tell you, for being the first person in the world to ever have cubs and only having had two days in which to get a start at it, I think I'm doing quite well, thank you very much. I don't need any wheelchair parenting, thank you very much...

Okay, maybe I do, but still. He should be kind enough to wait for me to ask for it. Or something. Though that might be too much to ask for from the guy who, in all probability, probably would have threatened something of the sort if we'd not been living at the Rock and, therefore, not handicap accessible.

"I do. I was, however, close friends with Harry and he had to tell someone about the things you did as a child."

"That's low, Billy."

"How so?"

"Just is – and, yes, that's a perfectly good reason."

"I hate to say it, my dear, but you've been spending too much time with my son."

"That is," Nessie pointed out, seeming all too interested in the banter between Billy and me, possibly because she'd never seen me argue for so long with somebody without insulting their parentage, interest in small children that they claimed wasn't sexual, intelligence, and/or personal quirks (id est, tail-chasing, squirrel-conspiracy-seeing, et cetera), "rather the point, is it not? You cannot get grandchildren, Mr. Black, without Aunt Leah and Uncle Jake spending large amounts of time together. At least," she amended, looking pensive, "not that I'm aware of. I will have to ask Father about that."

It took the utmost strength of will not to burst out in laughter at the thought of the mind-raper having that conversation with his daughter. Billy, however, only hmmmed and held the furball in his left hand close to his face. "Diane, is it?" Being two days old and currently a wolf cub, Di sniffed him. "Now, you're a pretty thing as you are, but don't you think you could make things more difficult for your parents if you were human for a bit? Just think of all the trouble you two could get into if you phased. You'd be bigger, for one, and no one would be able to hear your thoughts..."

To my utmost surprise and Nessie's infinite amusement, Di seemed to take this to heart and, a moment later, her twin decided to join her, and, next thing you knew, there were two human infants with a tuft of dark hair in want of clothing in Billy's arms.

"It's reverse psychology. Worked wonders with you 'til you got wise about the time you entered kindergarten." I shot him another glare. "I stole all the presents you left behind after the baby shower, by the way. They're in Jake's room."

I stole my children back from their grandfather and, sure enough, found a couple of onesies, some diapers, and a pair of carriers, muttering to them the entire time about how it was so not fair they'd listened to Billy and not to me. I mean, hello, I'd tried explaining it to them, for all they were two days old. I'd tried show-and-tell. Begging. Only reason I hadn't tired Alpha commanding is that I wasn't sure I wanted to a) set the precedent and thereby give the twins reason to hate me when they got to those annoying puberty years or b) if the command of an Alpha-by-marriage would work on Alphas-by-blood and Jake thought it was more "cute" than annoying that they'd remained cubs.

I was just tucking Dan into one of the carriers and daring him to move until I did the same with his sister when the door slammed open. Rather hoping it was Jake come to tell us he needed his axe to dissemble whatever was left of Sam so the boys could run the pieces out to James Island and burn them or something unduly complicated like that, but my hopes were immediately dashed when the yelling began again, this time along the vein of "like,-oh-my-god,-there-is-a-half-vampire-on-our-land,-we-must-now-kill-and-destroy-undead-things-for,-obviously,-starting-a-war-by-sending-an-infant-to-kill-us," et cetera, et cetera, oh-my-god,-shut-up-already cetra.

"...bringing a fucking leech onto our land!"

"Well, Nessie wanted a pet of her own so we thought we'd take her here, you know, let her see the possibilities- What do you think, Sam? I've been here all day, you've seen me. Leah probably was stuck babysitting or something."

"That thing nearly got all of us killed. It-"

"Firstly," said Nessie, and I hurried with Diana, knowing that people who weren't used to Ness would probably not take well to anything she might say, be it a discussion of the Epicurean Paradox (yesterday, while I was trying to sleep), the likelihood that Sesame Street might ever admit to a homosexual relationship between Bert and Ernie (the day before, on the phone with Kate, who found the whole labour part of giving birth boring), the use of Brownian motion to create Finite Improbability Drives (the day before that, when she wanted to have a tea taste test), or (as seemed likely today) some long debate the place of intra-specific hybrids in treaties. In fact, Sam would probably not take the last one very well at all and, while that would normally be amusing, it mostly just was annoying at this point, "I would point out the fact that none of us here are dead and how, even if we were, it would not be my fault so much as Cousin Irina's for telling the Volturi, your pack for keeping us from catching her and killing her mate in the first place, Mother's for deciding that it was a good idea to marry Father while still human, Grandfather Carlisle's for not protesting more vehemently against it, and Aunt Leah's for deciding that she didn't like Mumbai after all. And, secondly, if I remember things correctly, it was Uncle Jake, Uncle Seth, Aunt Leah, Quil, Embry, and several my my cousins that risked their lives to keep us safe. I do not recall you, Samuel Uley, as having offered any help at all."

I grabbed both carriers and headed back to the living room in time to see Jared step in front of his Alpha. "Sam, she's only a kid," he said, trying to be reasonable. Jared may have been a dense jerk, but, of the idiots left to Sam's keeping, Jared was the least idiotic. I mean, yes, he imprinted, but he did drag himself along to Kim's book club for five months before she took pity on him and said he didn't have to – proving that at least Jared can read. I'm none to sure about some of the others, but you gotta take everything you can get with these boys.

Sam looked inclined to say that, no, she was not a child but the devil incarnate, but couldn't find the right phrasing. But that's okay. I'm not entirely certain she wasn't – Ness was, after all, Bella's child, and Bella was a sadomasochistic co-dependant with serious daddy issues; not to mention Edward is (still) a sexually repressed Victorian who, one must admit, is at least usual enough in his religious convictions to be certain he won't be among the "Saved," whomever they may be – but still, he had no right to think such things. She was my niece. I was the only one allowed to insult her.

"Can't you just Alpha command him, Jake, and end this all?" I said, sparing not a glance for my ex, who, personally, I've never been gladder is an ex. "Or, I dunno, de-bleat him?"

With a look that said, "If he was a goat..." Jake quickly changed subjects. "How'd you get them to phase?"

"I didn't. Billy did."

"Cool, way to go Dad."

"I dunno," said Quil, who was leaning, partially unseen, by the back door. "Least as wolves we – sorta – had an idea what to do."

"Which is why you ask Aunt Rose. She loves babies. And she said that Uncle Emmett's always wanted a puppy."

I rolled my eyes. "So, you two gonna fight or what?" Dan made a noise that sounded oddly enough like an of-course-they're-going-to-fight humph that turned into an I'm-hungry fuss. At least, that's what it turned out to be, and, as much (as I discovered) I dislike breastfeeding when engaging in inter-pack politics, I had to. Why, because werewolves are always hungry. Especially the babies. And I'm hungry too, but can I eat? No... because I threw the food Esme had sent along at Sam and there's practically a gold-foil guarantee that there's no food in Billy's house. "I just ask out of vague curiosity. That, and I'm getting tired of this all, and that's saying something, 'cause you know I like a good fight as much as the next person. But this is frankly ridiculous. I mean, we've beaten this to death so much that I'm frankly getting bored of having to think of insulting things to call Sam. So why don't we all just do the human thing for once and be logical about his."

"But you're not human, Aunt Leah. You're a human subspecies, a hybridization yourselves, and-"

"Not helping, Ness."

"Just saying."

I deliberately ignored her. "I could even draw you a map to this if you wanted. Just look at us – you're looking about ready to tear up Billy's house because of a stupid mines-bigger-than-yours fight. Now, I for one love the Rock, but I'm getting kinda tired of living there, and would much rather take over the house like Mom wants to let me once she moves in with Charlie. Then there's the fact that the leeches, while dreadfully annoying sometimes, aren't exactly a danger to anyone – well, maybe our sanities," I clarified. "Still, though, the leeches like us and are in charge of things now, so we don't have to worry about power mad leech princes coming to kill us-"

"Stefan and Vladimir are raiding Volterra, and have spent much of the last millennium plotting."

"I'm talking about in our lifetimes, Ness."

"Oh. Well. You may be right then. Continue."

"Thank you for your permission," I said, settling onto the couch beside her. "But, anyway, we have been over this: Ephraim Black was Alpha, so Jake is Alpha. Levi Uley was Beta, so Sam isn't. Why do we have to keep going over this?" I turned to look at Sam curiously and saw he was trying (and obviously failing) to look anywhere but me. Stupid sheep-stealing lip-molester. "Do you have a learning disability we don't know about? 'Cause that would explain quite a lot. Oh, not you too," as Di began to fuss. "You mind, Ness?" I handed her Dan and took up his sister. "Thanks. Now, what do you want, Diane? Don't tell me you're jealous too, 'cause, if you are, I might have to start charging for my fan club membership. Be a good way to start you a college fund, I guess..."

Jake backed off sending death glares at Sam long enough to snort at the comment, missing the green-eyed monster taking over my ex. Which was rather unfortunate, considering what happened next.


	17. Pe

I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake. That I could forget the mockers and insults!  
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers!  
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!"

Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"

* * *

What Sam did do, however, proved to me that the world had at last come to and end, 'cause things had stopped making sense entirely. Sam stepped forward, then tumbled into a pile with Billy, who, for whatever reasons of his own, had decided to intervene and causally roll towards me – conveniently tangling Sam's bare feet in the wheels.

Needless to say, this stopped the argument in its tracks as Sam apologized profusely to Billy, thinking it his own fault and acting like an adult for the first time in ages, and Seth and Judy (who, in natural werewolf fashion, had been scrounging the kitchen for something to eat, coming up with half a bottle of apple juice, a box of expired of S'mores Pop-Tarts, and a bag of frozen peas; my boy scout brother, either very hungry, very odd, or both, ate the peas right out of the bag) to pop their heads out of the kitchen with the complaint that, if Jake and Sam were going to fight, couldn't they do it in a place where they could watch. Still, when it was all sorted out, Billy was alright, if hard pressed to hide how pleased with himself he was, Sam and his had left, and there was, officially, no food left in the house.

"Well," I declared after we discovered this, "the Cullens never bothered to ask for their credit card back. So, who wants Chinese?"

In the end, we ended up (after Seth ran home and begged the car off Mom, who would have come with us herself if Charlie wasn't coming to pick her up for a – shudder – date later) going to Las Estrellasin Port Angeles, being outvoted, even after claiming the twins wanted Chinese too. Oh well.

It was quiet when the Rabbit came, at last, to a halt in The Cullens' driveway. Jake was driving, and Quil was in the passenger's seat, with the rest crammed into the back. Once again, I was curled up (in wolf form) in the back seat, watching Di try to pounce on my tail as Dan, quite amusingly, tried to push her out of the way so he could have a turn. As we piled out, Quil handed over the take out we'd brought for those who'd been on patrol, and he, Seth, and Judy took their places running the border. Ness, after scratching me behind the ears, ran into the manor, thanking me for allowing her, "a valuable insight into how werewolves behave in their home territory," for the paper she was writing with her father. I'd nothing to say to that except that, if you were reduced to having your children spy on your pseudo-friends so you could write reports about them no one else will ever read, you've been around a bit too long. But oh well.

There was the usual string of overheard gossip – who'd hunted what, how Edward feared that the hegemony they hoped to install would inevitability succumb to the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" (something that would, he argued, only be expedited if, like Jasper and Tanya were advocating, they moved to set up their "castle" about a hundred miles north-west of Whitehorse, on the shores of Aishihik Lake, in the Yukon, where there were few people and fewer reasons to fear when non-veggie Nomads stopped by), and what insanity Emmett, Alice, and Kate had done this time. There was even a "Marhabah" from Benjamin and Tia as they borrowed the Aston Martin for a quick jaunt to Aspen for some skiing and some hunting – which was unusual, not the them saying hi part, I mean, but the fact they were going so far to hunt, either meaning that the Cullens trusted them enough to keep to their new diet without a minder or they'd given up on it and had fancied some late-season holiday-goers. Little Senna, Zafrina's mate, even gave us a small smile from her perch on the porch before going back to whittling something that looked to be some kind of cat; this in particular was odd, because Senna had never struck me as all there in the brains department and never really appeared to pay attention to anyone around her, not in a bad way, mind, but rather eccentric, as all leeches were, just in her own peculiar way.

Then, in that way you see cats do, I picked up Di – gently – by the scruff of her neck and Jake, phasing, did the same with Dan, and we brought them back to the Rock.

And we were alone. At last. Just the four of us.

A stray pine cone had found its say under the lean-to, and the moment we set them down the twins, apparently not at all tired, took after it, though it was easily a third their size, and I, with a sigh, dragged my aching body under the lean-to and, finding the nearest clump of blankets to flop upon, did so.

Someone's tired, Jake teased, nudging me over just enough so he could lay down behind me, using my shoulder for a pillow.

My eyes felt leaden, unwilling to stay open for much longer, though, psychically, I wasn't sleepy in the least. It was rather like... like I'd spent the last eight hours reading and, while I could climb into bed if I wanted to, there was no guarantee I'd be falling asleep any time soon. Mentally exhausted, I clarified. Why is it that every fucking time I come within ten miles, it seems, of Sam something happens to set him off, and we ruin perfectly good food, and have to yell – and I know I've said it before, but I can't think of anything else wretched to call him, and you know how much I hate to repeat myself.

That I do... 'Sides, you have a temper, Sam's an idiot, and I'm a ruggedly handsome-

I gave a bark of laughter. Oh yes. Just keep telling yourself that.

Of course he's jealous, Lee. Even an idiot with barely two brain cells to rub together would be jealous and, at last counting, we decided he had three. And so we had. We figured one was needed for breathing and walking upright, the second for talking and eating with utensils, and the third to be able to do things of such stupidity you had to plan them to get them that screwed up. Think about it, though. Firstly, I am ruggedly handsome. Secondly, he's idiot enough that the Powers That Be, (id est, the mystical werewolf gods that controlled who phased, who imprinted, and what not; Kate suggested we call them baji-naji, which I'm sure meant something to her and not a thing to me) thought he wouldn't figure out how to carry on the Uley line by himself, so they had to do their whole mind-voodoo-thing-

'Mind-voodoo-thing'?

Yes, you know the one, where they take people who have a chance of being perfectly sensible or, at least, not complete idiots, and make them go all-

Yes, yes, I said, yawning as I watched Di try to head but the pine cone away from her brother and ended up tumbling over her own feet instead. She looked down at her paws as if about to scream, "Why, feet? Why? Why did you betray me?" and settled for a moment of pouting before running after Dan, who'd paused to watch her, head cocked, in amusement. My lips, of their own accord, slipped into a lupine grin. I may not have been able to talk to them so they understood me – not at this point, anyway – and they may have annoyed me to hell with their let's-help-Mommy phasing and there still remained the fact I was certain I was not the poster girl for raising children, werewolf cubs or no, but I couldn't help but love them. I didn't even know them, only that they were babies and slept a lot and were hungry almost as much and could be tricked using reverse psychology even thought I'm fairly certain no one's ever done any studies on the psychology of newborns, but I love them. I know you mean imprinting. I was just mocking the name.

You don't agree it's mind-voodoo?

Oh, of course it is – but still, it amused me. I had to comment. But you were saying... about Sam having to have that mind-voodoo-thing so he'd know how part A fits into slot B?

Personally, I was going to say something along the lines of needing 'the magic-voodoo-thing to give him The Talk,' y'know, but that works too. But where was I?

Pontificating.

I swore I heard him roll his eyes. Anyway, back to two, he's upset that he's such an idiot the PTB had to do their mind-voodoo-thing on him, whereas I, obviously, am. Not an idiot, I mean. I mean, I snagged you in the end didn't I?

I resent the implication. You couldn't get rid of me if you tried.

I know, he sighed, send you halfway around the world and you still find your way back. Worse than carrier pigeons wolves are.

I told you it was a stupid idea to 'initiate' Colin and Brady by trying to loose them in the woods.

Blame your brother – it was his idea.

And you decided to take it, O High and Mighty Alpha.

It was either that or send them to Kate, and I didn't want them to run away in horror when she started talking about the various descendants of her cousin she's slept with.

She can't help it, I said reasonably, my smile growing as he sighed. She has this thing for royalty, and it's not her fault her cousin's children married them. Royalty, I mean. Kate's been very... detailed... on the subject. Something about, I said, wanting to wave my hand airily at this, but, having paws that didn't bend that way at the moment, settled for pulling myself to them as I prepared to break up the fight that was about to happen between the twins over who had possession of whose tail, how, once they married the Austro-Germanic-Hungarians – the guys in the middle, anyway, that it was pretty much a fait accompli that all the princes would be related to her one way or another. But, last I checked, she was planning a trip to London because, apparently, she's not slept with any of the Windsor and- Hey!

I had just shaken my kinks out and was beginning to make my way over to Di and Dan when Jake, finally seeming to realize what I was doing, jumped up and, with a not entirely gentle nudge, pushed me back onto the pile of blankets we'd made a nest in. I've got them, you rest. I snorted, but didn't protest. You were looking a little overwhelmed.

Yawning, You can say that again. He didn't, but broke the twins up, and, after a moment's trotting into the woods, found them each a pine cone to play with, which delighted them.

It doesn't seem that hard.

What doesn't? I asked as he curled up beside me again, nuzzling my muzzle a little.

The parenting thing.

We've only been at it two days.

And no crises.

Just wait 'til they start puberty. That'll be be fraught with difficulty, I'm sure.

We'll practice on Judy and Zack.

Three she-wolves, I mused, sinking into the blankets as I started to doze off. I'm surprised Emmett hasn't started in on the speciation jokes.

No one's imprinted on anybody yet, at least, so that's a plus.

As always.

Speaking of imprinting fools, his voice went sing-song, but I know something you don't know.

The difference between hardwood and softwood? I suggested.

Well, yes, but I think you'll find this one even more amusing.

There's something amusing about types of wood?

No, not really, but can I get on with it?

If you really want to. If not, I'll take a nap.

God, Lee, could you be any more supportive?

Fine, I harrumphed, but if this is something about Judy planning to do something about my threat to lock her in a closet with Zack, I already suspect it, and it'll never work anyway. She's only embarrassed that I forbid her to have cubs until she's out of school in front of Zack, Colin, and Brady.

Did you now?

Oh yes. Didn't I tell you about it last night?

You might've, but my ears were still ringing from the don't-you-dare-imprint-on-my-cubs lecture you were giving them before then, so I probably just couldn't hear any of it.

You wound me so.

I guess you don't want to hear my exciting news then.

Fine. Tell me. I'm all ears. And paws.

Jake gave me a look that said, "I won't even dignify that with a response," before, at last, telling me, I know where Kate and Garrett are.

And I care why?

'Cause it's something you might want to hide from?

She's already besieged me with wedding plans. How much worse can this be?

They went to Ukraine.

Shit.


	18. Tzadi

"Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to  
deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire."

Kurt Tucholsky

* * *

In attempt to escape from Kate and her Ukrainian holy water, I devised a hasty tactical withdrawal from The Cullen Asylum for the Immortally Insane and all of its inpatients. Within two days I had managed to, a) convince Mom to give into her life of sin and debauchery and move in with Charlie, even though they weren't having their wedding until July (though why, I don't know, but I've given up trying to figure out people and their marital inclinations, and so didn't even ask) to free up the house, b) convince Esme that I wasn't moving because of something one of her kids did, c) convince Carlisle that as cool as his house was and everything, the pack's sanity couldn't wait for their house up in the Yukon to be built and all the various leeches in Forks to move up there and do whatever law-making things leeches did when they weren't trying to kill each other for ideological differences to take the manor over, d) talk Alice down from a home-redecorating spree that, somehow, she managed to accomplish over the phone with a Chinese fung shui designer, an Amish furniture manufacturer, and a team of French Canadians, limiting her insanity, at least, to the French Canadians; and, e) most current importance, express to Maggie the importance of pretending to be an average fourteen-year-old if she insisted on driving into Seattle with me, Ness, and the twins and not act like spending two hundred dollars on a Mia Bossi diaper bag was pocket change. Not that, of course, that she listened to me, but no one in the store thought it odd and, likely, thought that Maggie and Ness were the children of my (much older) husband's first marriages and we just happened to get along better than stepmothers and their stepchildren usually did. But that's what happens when your children need human clothes and the one who usually provides these things says outright, "Normally, I'd be glad to, but right now I have an emergency to handle. Rain check."

Personally, I hoped that Alice's emergency had something to do with crashing stock exchanges and most certainly not anything to do with the house we were taking over from Friday, after everyone got out of school. I doubted it though. I just hoped she didn't do anything too bizarre and, I dunno, had the French Canadians take out all the walls and put in a whole bunch of oversized doggy beds. What I really wanted to know, though, was why Canadians in the first place and, secondly, why the French-flavour of Canadians.

Actually, no. I didn't want to know because, almost certainly, it would not be anything I could follow. I'd listened to Kate expound upon the forty or so generations of royalty she'd slept with, and to Jasper in his this-is-what-really-happened-during-the-Battle-of-So-and-So moments, and to Rose when she wanted to talk about things like the importance of handmade gifts, never discussing business on an empty stomach, and, most importantly, presentation. I'd done the same, when Carlisle did his so-you-wanna-be-your-own-species medical things, when Esme wanted me to "help" her cook (a task that was me, standing there, breaking the occasional egg out of respect for her vampire strength and her desire not to get bits of shell in her cooking), when Maggie wanted to go on movie watching binges, when Nessie wanted to expound upon various paradoxes that she seemed to be dedicating her whole life to solving, and, of course, when Mary decided to tell me about the "good ol' days" before Plymouth Rock. I was good at listening, better at mocking, and best of all at ignoring, but I had a feeling anything Alice might choose to share with me on the remodelling of my childhood home was going to be beyond even my abilities to deal with.

Which is why, when she started talking about it, I promptly went to sleep. It was also, probably, why when I woke up, I was lounging on sofa in Carlisle's medical lab, a tube running from my elbow into a glass jar on the floor that appeared to contain at least half a gallon of my own blood, with (if I could guess correctly from the amount of dark hair on the head tucked under my chin) Dan in human form under my other arm, while the dread Doctor Frankenstein and his demonic assistant, Igor, appeared to be giving Diane a series of vaccinations, which she seemed to be more interested in than disturbed by – though that might have had something to do with the fact Nessie was the one holding her to make sure she didn't wiggle, and Nessie looked quite interested herself in the goings on. God, wasn't it bad enough that Ed-weird had to sleepstalk his now-wife when she was human, but he had to do so to me and mine? Did this speak of bizarre habits or creepy preferences?

I swear, the jerk winked at me. I swear it. Winked. I've seen the Cullens' video collection. I know they have every monster movie known to man, including but not limited to the ninety-two-hundred Dracula movies. I also know that when all you do is go through high school over and over again and you don't sleep, it's not like he didn't have the time to watch them and/or brush up on his übercreepy Angelus-esque stalking techniques. I mean, really. He was just making it too easy to mock his thought-raping, sneak-into-your-room-at-night-and-watch-you-sleep ways. I'd have to think of new insults to hurl at him. I could try for the overeating leech jokes, but, really, beyond Vampy the Buffet Slayer and Count Snackula, there weren't all that many you could make, and then they'd just say they drank a lot of animal blood to keep from killing innocent humans and, if one wanted them to not do that, well, they could, but don't come running if we didn't like the results...

So I settled for glaring at the back of his head and thinking as loudly as I could, Stay away from my daughter, you sexually-repressed mind-man-whore. I paused after a moment of this, pondering, and thought loudly towards him, Make that stay away from everyone. Who knows what kind of ancient mind STDs you're carrying around – something far deadlier than Kate's chlamydia. I don't want to get brain-syphilis 'cause you can't help but riffle through my thoughts, and I certainly don't want Di or Dan to come down with whatever common-sense-destroying kind of crab you've been carrying around for the last hundred years.

"Leah's up," the mind-rapist said simply to Carlisle, "and she's making references to Mary Shelly."

"I'm ashamed of you, Aunt Leah," Ness said with mock-sorrow in her voice. "You're starting to repeat yourself; I could have sworn you've used that one before. You could," after a moment's deliberation, "at least reference Mary Wollstonecraft or, I do not know, some other Mary. Mary Mallon maybe."

I didn't even try to follow her reasoning. "Whatever, Loch Ness. I'm living in fear of Kate coming back from Ukraine and staging a holy water-balloon fight."

The girl, who rightfully shouldn't have been walking yet, let alone chiding me for my lack of variety in my insults, looked at me peculiarly. Which is to say, more peculiarly than usual. "Ukrayina?" and not even her father's hand, which moved at vampiric speeds to cover her mouth, could stop her from continuing, "She's not in Ukrayina."

It was my turn to look puzzled while Ness's own puzzled stare turned on Edward. I tried not to snicker, burying my face in Dan's hair as best I could, and, failing almost utterly, succeeded only in waking Dan up. He gave me a look that said, quite blandly, Oh, good Mommy, you're up, and continued, with hardly any change of inflection, Let's go to the park. Or, at least, it was some version of the let's-go-play-somewhere-where-it-doesn't-smell-so-sickly-sweet thought. I think. Being only a week old and not (at least, apparently not) genetic freaks of nature, like Nessie, neither twin could talk, and even the strange pack-mind thing that allowed the pack, when phased, to share thoughts, wasn't much help. Mostly because, presumably, at a week old wolf thoughts were no more understandable to adult wolves than baby speak was to humans.

The last two days, I might have failed to point out, had also come with Jasper opening a new round of betting, this one on when the twins would start to talk and what their first words might be. There was an embarrassingly large sum on spread not too thinly amongst a variety of curse words.

After a moment, "So, any reason why I'm not supposed to know where Kate is? She's not off starting a war, is she?"

"No," Edward told me, using his favourite you're-an-idiot tone.

"Founding a cult?" Knowing Kate, if it wasn't the one, it was the other. Not because Kate particularly liked wars or religious extremists, but she claimed they made life "interesting" and, presumably, living forever got quite boring very fast.

If possible, his, "No," contained even more vitriol than before.

God, I just used the word "vitriol." I feel myself becoming a sexually-repressed Victorian already.

"I would like to point out," he continued, obviously hearing my thought, "that I am technically of the Edwardian Era. Queen Victoria died several months before I was born."

"Narcissist."

The mental man-whore rolled his eyes and took an unnecessary deep breath. "I know," he said to Carlisle, "that I have done much that can never be forgiven, but nothing I can recall seems to justify the hell of her thoughts."

Knowing from Kate about about his little teenage rebellion, I decided to be outraged.

"Why," Ness quickly cut in, "is Aunt Leah not supposed to know Cousin Kate is visiting Stefan and Vladimir, to make sure they are not plotting to take over the world?"

Her father pinched his nose and walked out of the room. About to make a comment on how he shouldn't judge my parenting techniques if his own was to let his "parents" handle it – not to mention I'd probably spent more time with his kid than his wife had twice over. Maybe it was 'cause his shoulders seemed to sag as he passed out of sight, or maybe something else, but I didn't. It was hard to remember, but Edward was, beneath all the leech stuff, only seventeen-years-old. I was twenty-one and didn't know the first thing about raising kids... but he was, nominally, at least, even younger, and, from what I'd learned over the long months of knowing Kate, probably had never thought about kids of his own when he was alive. I guess it wasn't his fault that his stupid human bride managed to get pregnant. I mean, who'd've thunk it, vampires being dead and all, and his flash frozen "genetic material" (pause while I gag) was, presumably, like him, dead...

I'll settle for blaming Bella and trying not to feel sympathetic for the bastard. Must think of other things... "So," I asked at last, "are Estragon and Vladimir planning on taking over the world?"

"Stefan and Vladimir," Ness corrected.

"Whatever. So, are they taking over the world or not? Do we have to look out for giant magnifying glasses being perched over us or mice tunnelling into the nuclear reactor downstairs?"

"We do not have a nuclear reactor. Autoclaves, yes: reactors, no." I wanted to bang my head on something, but nothing presented itself. "Kate will call when she's on her way back – and will probably swing through Kyiv, or Moskv, or maybe even Piter, what with how she was moping the fall of Kievskaya Rus' before she left – but, right now? I don't think Stefan and Vladimir are planning global conquest. Localized warfare, maybe, but nothing to worry about."

It may surprise you, but I still worried. Not about the Romanians, though. Not even about Kate. I worried about Nessie, growing up with leeches for parents. I worried about Di and Dan, growing up with the likes of me – not to mention the terrible influences Seth and Billy would be on them when they were older. I worried that more werewolves would phase before the Cullens' ice palace in the Yukon was finished, kids as young as Zack and Judy and Matty. I worried that, if not the Romanians, than maybe the nomads wouldn't like this pentaumvirate the Denalis and the Cullens and the Irish and the Amazonians were setting up with the whoever's-available-at-the-time nomad and would start another war. Maybe another one of my cubs would die...

I worried that they would fit in worse than the rest of us, with them never knowing a world other than the mythological. I worried they'd imprint or be imprinted on (Di was safe from my pack, thank God, but there were Sam's three who'd phased after the schism and weren't imprinted yet still to worry about, after we finally merged packs; and who was to say, if me and Judy and Di had phased, someone else wouldn't come and do it on Dan?) and never fall in love, like I had with Jake...

I worried something would happen to Jake, like with Dad...

I worried Irina might sneak out of the attic and do something amazingly stupid to get us all killed again...

I worried a lot, and didn't like it.

Still, life went on. We moved on Friday back onto the Rez, and nothing happened. Kate didn't call, Alice didn't cover the plumbing with gold leaf, and Sam didn't do a thing, except for glare at us whenever he happened to see us. His pack was rather friendlier, as best they could be, but Sam seemed to have them on constant watch ever since Colin and Brady broke away, in case anyone else decided to try the same. I heard from Rachel that Jared was in something of disgrace for wanting Sam to step down already and let everything get back to normal – or as close to normal as werewolves ever got.

But, with Emily gone and rumoured to be at her parents on the Makah Rez, nothing was going to get back to normal any time soon. Quil, who overheard from Claire's parents when he went over for play dates, had found out that Em had mailed Sam his ring back and, the several times Sam had gone up to Makah to try and see her, she'd refused, which just made Sam madder and less sensible, if that was at all possible, which had Alice trying to convince Jasper to teach some of us how to plant bugs in Sam's place, never mind there was no way any of us could get in there even if we wanted to without being smelled out. An upset Sam was something none of us particularly wanted, at least, not when we were nearby.

Weeks passed until, after three fittings (for me and Judy), a rehearsal dinner, two trips to a high-end tailor in Seattle (for the guys), the last minute change from blue thistle and bamboo shoot boutonnières to something with bluebells and cornflower due (or so Alice said) to some sort of unexpected panda habitat debacle involving a pet snake, an off-duty paramedic, and a wine-flavoured wooden cigarette; and seven overnight trips back to the Cullens for all-night games of monopoly and an introduction to the job I'd convinced Rose, Alice, and Esme I wanted (rather than continue to find money miraculously in pockets and whatnot, which seemed a bit creepy to me when we weren't actually "protecting" them full time now; the money that mysteriously came my way now was going to be payment for cleaning out their basement, an occupation that could take a lifetime), it was less than a week until the wedding.

The Thursday before the wedding, after a particularly long night of Monopoly, involving four boards placed together and a sixteen-sided die, I was trying to do laundry. At least, if anyone asked, that's what I was doing. What it looked like, to anyone not in the know, was that I was watching a twenty-seven-year-old movie with the guy from Ferris Buler's Day Off that I thought had died of cancer ages ago, don't ask me why, and some girl who looked super familiar but I couldn't place at all while dozing in front of several half-folded baskets of laundry, Di and Dan curled up (as wolves in the nearest one, sound asleep and shedding all over Seth's shirts, which just went to show that I shouldn't have been cornered into cleaning things in the first place. It just wasn't fair. Alright, I knew I was the only one without school or whatnot to fill my day and the bi- or tri-weekly basement clearing I was doing for the Cullens was technically cleaning, but still. Laundry had never been my strong suit. Just ask Mom) in the nearest basket.

So maybe it wasn't a surprise that, when I was stirred out of my half-slumber, hearing a noise I couldn't immediately place, my hand searched blindly for the iPhone on the table for a moment before lifting it to my ear. Begging the question of why exactly one saw fit to call me in the middle of the day after late night board-gaming and how, if she wanted to drag my ass to do anything at all today, she'd have to come onto the Rez herself and get me, it took me another moment to realize that the reason no one was answering was because the noise was still continuing, and coming, not from the phone, but the door.

Looking through the pigeon-hole, I could clearly see Sam standing on the porch, eyes downcast, hands in pockets, looking for the first time in a long while like he wasn't going to go at the throat of anyone who so much as looked at him the wrong way. In fact, he looked much like he did the last time I saw him, before the whole sneak-into-my-room-during-exams sex thing that began our whole falling out, right before he phased, when we were heading out to a movie or something... I remember asking him if he was getting the cold that was going around and he was saying maybe, but he'd spent the last two hours or something on the phone with the funeral home, arguing with them about whether or not he'd sent them the last check for his mom's funeral that February...

Leaving the chain on the door, I opened it a crack. "I don't want to talk to you," I said softly, so as not to wake the twins. "We've nothing more to say to each other."

He was fully dressed, I noticed, which was weird for those of us of the werewolf persuasion, and in the Olympic peninsula's constant rain, had gotten soaked enough that his ridiculous body head hadn't dried the out yet. "Look," he said, tone melancholy, sticking his foot out so I couldn't close the door in his face, "I know it's entirely too late and probably will mean nothing to you, and I understand that, but I," he paused, seeming at once both much older than he had when I'd last seen him and much, much younger. Like he might have actually been that boy I had, once, thought I loved and thought loved me. It was disconcerting. I didn't want any guy standing on my front porch with dripping clothes and hair plastered against his forehead to be talking in this tone to me – not Jake and certainly not anybody else, Sam at the top of that list. "I just thought you should know," he continued, "that I still love you."


	19. Qop

"Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be the kind of man who would nev-  
To be a kind of man. And she will look upon him with forgiveness... and everybody will forgive and love.  
And he will be loved. So everything's okay, right? C-can we rest now? Buffy? Can we rest?"

Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Beneath You"

* * *

Rather than risk the newly painted door slamming it against Sam's feet, I let it hang open as far as the chain would let it, and went back to the TV. I turned up the volume as loud as it would go, despite it showing a commercial now for a tropical diet gum, and studiously did my bed to ignore my dearest, darling, ex. However, as one might expect, Sam had never much exercised his common sense (let alone his common decency) and didn't seem to realize I didn't want a thing to do with him. He was trying to tell me something through the door anyway, something the senior dating service ad that was now on couldn't quite block out.

It's not the same couch, not after Alice had had her way. That one was old, Lands End, I think, like the rest of the furniture that's God knows where now. Probably in that basement of theirs, next to the autoclave and Carlisle's seventeenth century shoes. The old one had a wooden base and there were three cushions of a blue jeans material that were soft and faded from so many years. I liked that couch. This one was new, smelled new, the colour of pale honey. It's in a different place too, this new couch, and though everything from the colour of the walls to the carpet to the TV is different, it's still the same room, and I can't forget-

Its been years now, you know. It still hurts, a little, in the way any betrayal burns afterwards. I know I felt nothing for him like I thought I felt for me. I know I was planning on breaking up with his sorry ass... but still. You just don't expect to find your boyfriend making out with your cousin/best-friend-who-he's-never-met-before in your living room – not without one or the other having seriously imbibed beforehand, at least. You don't expect them just to off and leave you to pick up the pieces of your life while they get closer than peas in a pod, 'til at last they're more sickening to watch together than any chick-flick, and they're moving in together (after three weeks) and getting married (four months) with you still trying to figure out what happened.

If there wasn't magic, and myth, maybe... but there are, you see, and I've had too much insight into the idiot's head and have had to deal too often with his shit and with him trying to kill me or people I don't want him to kill or not lifting a hand to help keep me or anyone else from dying to be able to be polite or politic to him. I can't even look at the guy without getting angry. All the things he's done – and I don't mean the ones to me, though those piss me off too, but to everyone else, all 'cause of this fake Alpha crap. It he'd been even half the kinda Alpha he should have been, Matty wouldn't be dead. I know I shoulda fought harder to keep Matty and his sister and Zack safe, maybe even shoulda sent them to Seoul in my place, so that they wouldn't have ever been exposed to danger, but God, somewhere in the long, twisted, crazy story of our lives I knew – just knew – that it was his fault as much as mine, and I couldn't forgive him for that, no more than I could myself.

I mean, I mean, really. Honestly. Truly. I'm only twenty-one. Twenty-one, I tell you. I'm too young, by my books, to be a mom. Too young to be married, especially quasi-creepily to a guy still in high school, and no matter how much I really do love Jake, its still more than a little weird, and I'm sure the kids at his school make fun of him for it when they think he can't hear them, or something like similar that he'll never tell me about 'cause he doesn't want me to feel guilty or some other such shit, as if it was my idea to get married in the first place... I shouldn't have to be dealing with all of this. It shouldn't have come to this.

Sam, I want to tell him, in the mind-to-mind fashion we wolves have, so he'd know it was truly how I felt, that I wasn't lying, that I really meant it. We had some good times – once. But you've got to know I never felt anything for you. Not really. I liked being with you. I liked doing things with you. I liked the fact that I'd someone to be with and do things with, but, it may have taken me awhile to realize it, I never really loved you. You were a friend, and a good one, once. I used to really like you – in the friendly way – before this all blew up in our faces.

You've got to know, I want to say, that I can never forgive you for what you and Emily did. I can understand why you did what you did – imprinting doesn't give you a choice and, as much as I hate you sometimes, I can't begrudge anyone their happiness. I can understand it, I can even get over the fact our "break up" occurred the way it did, but, by all the angels above and devils down below, I don't think I can honestly be expected to forgive you for making out with my cousin while we were still dating, moving in with her a week after we broke up, trying to kill me and molest me in turns while engaged to her; or now your coming to my door, when I'm happy and married and have twin pups curled up in the laundry basket, and telling me you love me. That last part, that I really can't forgive. Well, the trying to kill me part rather annoys me too, but right now the useless-protestations-of-love part bug me really a whole lot more.

It took me a long time, I would continue, for me to learn to trust anybody again, but I did. I love Jake. I know it probably makes no sense to you – hell, it makes no sense to me half the time – but I do. There's no one else I would rather be with. I don't know what's wrong with you, if you're just crawling back to me 'cause Emily left you or you've gone completely crazy, but I thought I'd bashed it through your thick skull. I don't know what you could possibly think that would make it seem like a good idea to try to win be back, and, frankly, I don't want to know, so just leave me the hell alone!

But, you see, we didn't have the stupid mind to mind connection any more (thank God), so I couldn't, and, clearly, there was no way that anything I might say might actually mean anything to him. And, for all I tried, when I closed my eyes and tried to listen to the incredibly actors on the TV asking, "Are either of you palaeontologists? I'm in desperate need of a palaeontologist," for some reason I'd not paid attention to enough of the movie to understand, I couldn't. Despite the flickering lights and loud sound and the smell of freshly washed laundry that, God, I couldn't believe I'd actually done, that memory consumed everything... Coming down the stairs and seeing that, theanger I'd felt at their betrayals, and then the strange emptiness that had settled upon me in the months after...

I had Jake now and I knew it was never love I felt for Sam, but, God, even remembering those days hurt. I didn't want to feel that dead again. It was bad enough during the battle, with Alec's maddening black power had trapped me, making it so I felt nothing. But to just come here and say those things-

That feeling of emptiness didn't remind me of him, not any more. It reminded me of that battle, which reminded me of Matty... Matty who was cold and dead in the ground, never even having made it to his fourteenth birthday, with only a handful of people ever to know how he really died, however stupid and needless it was. I know that my son was his quasi-namesake, but still, I'm sure given half the chance Matty would rather be alive and have Daniel have another middle name, like Bob or something, rather than be dead and have one. I can still remember that first meeting, after he became a werewolf, the day after Jake and I had been infected by the stupid fairy and eloped, and how small he was compared to the others...

I leaned over and pulled the first furball in arms reach out of the basket and onto my chest, wanting to cuddle something soft and fluffy before I burst into tears – which, being a hormonal werewolf, I was liable to do. I looked down, saw stripes, and was about to stare back at the ceiling when I saw Dan yawn irritatedly with a look that said, "This is what you woke me up for, Mommy? I don't know why the guy wants a dinosaur doctor any more than you do."

Obligingly, I turned down the TV. It was another commercial for hunger-reducing gum, and I dimly had time to wonder how much the pack would need to bring our food bill down to that of an average family before I realized the high pitched noise that had just started wasn't coming from the TV but from the laundry basket. Figuring it was just Di angry at being left alone, I (God help me) muted the commercials and was surprised to find it wasn't her but, rather, the cell phone sticking out from under her still sleeping form screaming out, "Hit me baby one more time," - surprised, not because of the latest in the ever-changing, always -annoying, impossible-to-stop-or-silence ringtones Kate and/or Emmett kept my iPhone supplied with (and I had tried putting it on silent, thank you very much, not that it'd worked any better than air plane mode, or vibrate – though, I must admit, I'd noticed a tendency for the songs to be rather suggestive when on vibrate only), but because Di had managed to sleep through it. And that I'd not heard it before.

Tugging it out from under the pup, I pressed talk. "Yo."

Alice, predictably, seized on this. "You should know by now that 'yo' is not an appropriate way to greet someone over the telephone."

"Whatever. I'd've thought that you would know by now that it's not a good idea to call people at," I checked the phone for the time, "eleven fifty-seven in the morning when said people were at your place 'til four that morning and, resulting, have had very little sleep. I'd like to point out that it's a worse idea when you're the person who stole Park Place from right under their nose."

"Multi-sided die," she waved this off, "are sufficiently stochastic enough that I have no way of knowing such things as you landing on Park Place mere seconds after I bought it. In fact, since you are a werewolf, it makes telling the future where you're involved endlessly tedious."

"And yet you used all your money and mortgaged off one of your other properties to be able to buy it."

"Allegedly. There were mitigating circumstances."

"I was there."

"My lawyer advices me not to talk about it."

"I've never heard of a lawyer specializing in monopoly laws, but, I'll admit, being immortal gives you guys a lot of time to specialize in the bizarre. So, did Emmett get this degree before or after his attempt at being a rabbi?"

"Jasper's the lawyer in the family – Princeton, back in the '60s. Couldn't handle the stress, though, of his classmates, so never did it again. Apparently students in the histories are much better at handling pressure. But, if I might ask, who is that in the background?"

"Oh? That? Just Sam trying to convince me of his undying love. He'll probably go away in a day or two. Why you calling anyway? I'm not feeling up to another discussion of table settings today."

"Leah, honey, I finished that ages ago. No, I'm just calling to remind you that Sonia should be stopping by your house soon to do your hair."

"It's like a week 'till the wedding," I pointed out, placing Dan back in the basket and sending a glare towards the door, where Sam was, admittedly, being only minimally annoying. I rather wished he'd do something to become a public nuisance, that way I could call Charlie and ask him to arrest Sam (again) without feeling like he was, I dunno, bringing nepotism to a whole new level. Maybe one of the neighbours had gotten angry at how loud I'd had the TV a moment ago and had already called the police, meaning Charlie was already on his way here for some sort of noise ordinance violation. Even if Sam was being quiet enough in his protestations of undying love that I could ignore him if I wanted to, which I did, maybe I could convince Charlie that Sam was the one going on about palaeontologists. Just tell him Jurassic Park was real too... "so I don't see why you want me to get my hair done now, 'cause there's no damn way in Porky Pig's country-fried ham hell that I'm sleeping with my head on a wooden block for a week like in that geisha movie, and if you for one Adderall-needing moment think I'll go through with something like that, well, you've been getting into Carlisle's coke stash again."

"Oh please. If your latest werewolf fantasy is going to make us into drug dealers, you could at least have us selling something interesting. I mean, everyone who's addicted to anything these days does cocaine. Can't you at least pretend to have us sell something interesting, like GHB or-?"

"You know," I said with complete honesty, "for a while I thought Emmett and Kate were the really messed up ones in your little coven/extended family thing. And then I realized, no, they're just a little eccentric. In a few hundred years of living, I'm sure you're bound to pick up some odd hobbies. You, though – you're the crazy one, and I don't just say that for the whole asylum thing 'cause, hey, it turns out you could actually see the future. No. You're genuinely crazy."

Not sounding it, "That hurts, mutt, it deeply hurts."

"Only a crazy person would have a monopoly lawyer – the Parker Brothers kind, that is. Y'know, I bet that when you say you're on the phone to your stockbrokers, you're really dealing drugs or something. I'd say GHB, but that was probably just to throw me off track. You probably get Carlisle to write tonnes of Oxycodone scripts and yell the pills on the black market. That's how you guys are so rich, isn't it? I always suspected you were drug lords. Where do you keep your fedoras? I've never seen them – though I suppose you go for a more Parisian look. Matching berets then? I've always wanted a raspberry beret. If I join your web of illicit narcotics smuggling, can I get a raspberry beret?"

"I can't even begin to think of how to answer that. So I'll answer your first question by explaining that you don't cut your hair the day of a wedding, you do it before hand so it has time to look 'normal' by the ceremony, though if you'd just grow it out..." she sighed dramatically here, "I suppose it's for the best. After all, vacuuming up your shed wolf hair is not how I want to spend my eternity."

"Well, spending eternity on the run from the DEA isn't how I'd want to spend my eternity either, but to each their own."

"I'm beginning to appreciate how much Kate kept you from driving the rest of us crazy."

I missed Kate. A lot. Not that I'd admit it to anyone. But still, "Any news on when she'll be back?"

"Oh, yes, that's the other reason I was calling. She'll be calling to tell us in twenty-three minutes that she's on her way home and will be leaving from Okęcie International in an hour. The upshot of this is she'll be back for the ceremony." I didn't know whether to be happy or afraid. Really, I didn't.

"And The Deathly Duo? They plotting the imminent destruction of life as we know it?"

"No," well, that was good. "From what I've gathered, I think they're taking everything of interest from Voltera before destroying the castle."

"So the must old books and old clothes and bits of the Maestà were just thanks-for-helping-us-kill-our-archnemeses presents? Weird, but okay. Oooh, and another question, since when do hair dressers – particularly ones who I went to high school with – do house calls?"

"Leah, Leah, Leah, honey, I'm just trying to invigorate the local economy."

"When'd you say Sonia would be here?"

"Twelve minutes or so."

"In that case, should probably get the twins to go human then. Don't want to have to have that conversation."

"You would probably love to have that conversation, actually," the vampire on the other end said. "The rest of it you couldn't take."

"Knowing my luck, one of the TICs would imprint on her, and they're all like, years younger than me, and she's Rachel's age..."

"TICs?"

"The Idiot Children. That's what I'm calling the Gammas now. Though I suppose The TICs is a little redundant but, y'know, but they are going to suck us dry, I can just tell..."

"You only have ten minutes and forty-two seconds now."

I hung up in disgust. Stupid vampires. Oh well. At least Kate was coming back. Things had seemed entirely too weird without her around. I mean, I'd expected her to be there to make snide comments about the various bridal gown people with, and to tease Alice with, and to make funny faces at Emmett with during his sunrise service on Easter (just don't ask), and whatnot. I didn't want to think of what this might portend (me actually missing her when she and the rest moved up to the Ice-Palace-in-Progress up north for one), but I knew it couldn't be good.

Still. With the TV quite quiet now and me left to my own devices (well, there were the twins, but they didn't count as far as conversation, back ups in a potential battle, et cetera went, not yet, at least), I was all too well aware of the open door and the figure beyond it.

He was a werewolf. Even un-phased our strength was several times more than what it should have been, and, unless Alice had had some contractors in that I didn't know about, the chain keeping the door from opening further was nothing. A quick push-

If I took the twins upstairs to my old room, I knew what I would see. Not the new, bright colours Alice had made it without ever seeing the room – swaths of "Hep Green" and "Reflecting Pool" with almost blindingly white baseboards and dado rails, details which I knew in far too many particulars for my mental well-being – but the old, buttery yellow walls, with the Lands End bed against the wall where the bunk-beds now stood and the battered old desk across from the window, where I moved it junior year 'cause I kept on getting distracted when I was trying to memorize the prologue of The Canterbury Tales, staring out at the yard where Seth, Jake, Embry, and Quil were trying (if I remember correctly) to make an airboat out of Styrofoam, duct tape, and parts salvaged from the junk-yard after seeing something similar done on TV. It didn't work, of course, but was hilarious to watch.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote, the droghte of march hath perced to the roote, and bathed every veyne in swich licour, of which vertu engendred is the flour...

Judy, having threatening to start calling me Mom if I don't let her, crashes there most nights now. The twin's cribs are in there too and, since even with the addition of oversized bunks in Seth's room and the fold-out I'm now sitting on, Zack's usually in there too. I make terrible fun of her for it, though God knows Zack's as oblivious as any thirteen-year-old boy. It's their room now, not mine, not since Alice's French Canadians with "Sequin" and "Sturdy Brown" redid Mom's room, making it mine and Jake's... but if I go there to put them in bed, like I probably should if Sonia's coming, with Sam at my door, saying these things, I know what I'll see: the desk piled high with open books, the US one in front of me, where I'm trying to make sense of the Tet Offensive, and my much-abused English anthology at my elbow...

...Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; surely the Second Coming is at hand...

...And I remember him coming in, though he'd been gone for days – he'd just phased the first time, not that I'd known it; not that I really cared he'd been gone (looking back, it is so easy to see the level of indifference I had in our relationship, and it makes me wonder how we lasted as long as we did). I don't want to remember that emptiness, but already that lingering question, Is this it? echoes through my thoughts...

...The dew of the morning sunk chill on my brow — it felt like the warning of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken, and light is thy fame: I hear thy name spoken, and share in its shame. They name thee before me, a knell to mine ear; a shudder comes o'er me — why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, who knew thee too well: — long, long shall I rue thee, too deeply to tell...

...And, with it, comes the haunting feeling of failure, of letting Matty down, of the fact that, in the cemetery not even five minutes away there's a boy in the ground who didn't reach his fourteenth birthday 'cause I dragged him into a war he shouldn't've been involved in, 'cause I couldn't protect him well enough. The Volturi may be re-dead, and the mythical world safe enough from the likes of the Brothers Godot for the moment, but, God knows that something will happen and we'll be at war again, and there'll be more pups I can't protect, more pups who shouldn't die but will because I'm not strong enough, will never be strong enough, 'cause all the power in the world can't stop death and, sometimes, these stupid things just happen for no adequately explained reasons. Logs fall on people and make them die hours later. People turn into werewolves unexpectedly and give their parents heart attacks. Drunks insist on driving and hit the cars of innocent, grocery-getting home-makers.

I've given the idiot to reason to believe I love him. That I've ever loved him. So why is he here? Why, the mother-fucking, giraffe-humping, penguin-pumping piece of rhino shit here?

I got the twins to phase out, dressing them in clothes still warm from the laundry rather than going upstairs to that room, that curséd room, and gave them a look that said, "Behave, or I shall sic Kate on you," and tried to figure out why Sam's presence on the other side of that door discombobulated me so. It's not like I loved him. Not now, not ever. It's not like I actually even liked him. But, God above, I just wanted him to go so I-

So I could what, I dunno. I was remembering things and I didn't want to remember and-

And-

And I snapped.

I went to the door and broke the chain myself as I pulled it open, getting a quick glance of a surprised and slightly steaming (rain plus hundred-five body temp, though he did look a touch angry as well) Sam before letting into him. "What the flipping grease-monkey fuck do you want from me, Sam? 'Cause I don't fucking get it. Is it the whole Alpha thing?" Even I'd noticed my scent, now that mating season was over, was going back to normal, or at least, wasn't what it had been then. "Is this your weird, twisted way of trying to get Emily back? Are you just plain ol' crazy? 'Cause, if you are, I'm sure we can find a nice mental institution to put you in. But your passive-aggressive weirdness is about to send me to an institution, so, unless that's your grand plan, will you save me the stress and tell me what the fuck is going on here?"


	20. Resh

"Passion is the source of our finest moments. the joy of love...the clarity of hatred...and the ecstasy of grief.  
It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace.  
But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd truly be dead."

Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Passion"

* * *

"You," he began slowly, quietly, entering the room, dripping on the patch of dark tiles that made up the entryway. Swallowing compulsively, Sam paused and took a breath I wasn't entirely sure he needed. I stepped back, towards the couch – the new, honeygold couch that stood against the wall instead of with its back to the stairs – just as slowly, quaking (I told myself) from anger, not nerves. I wasn't interested in what he had to say – well, academically I was, I'll admit that, but nothing he could say would change anything. Not after all this time. Especially after all this time. "You have to understand," he tried again.

"I fucking understand. I understand so well that I'm not just past it, I'm over-standing too. Since we have that shit worked out, you might getting the hell out off my porch and – finally – out of my life?"

He didn't leave. I didn't sit down. I just sorta lifted the basket with the (now human) twins in it off the floor and placed it on the couch behind me. And it so wasn't a Broadway crouch I fell into before it. It wasn't even a crouch. Sort of... Okay, so maybe it might have counted as a crouch – but only to the untrained eye. It was a perfect position to be in if you might need to phase mid-jump and have greatest mauling capabilities when you land. Which is so why non-mythical creatures (and people) should leave those of us with magic alone. Unless one of them ever figures out how our ancestors became fur-balls in the first place, let alone what happened to make the original vampires.

And on the eighth day- No. I'm better off without that image in my head.

Anyway, I was in my entirely cool crouch and Sam was standing, still rather dripping, by the door, closing it behind him but not, thank God, coming closer for the moment. I don't know what I would have done had he tried to invade my personal bubble again, let alone touch me. No, wait, I take that back. If he touches me to try and kill me, I'll castrate him. If he touches me to try and kiss me, I'll kill him. After I castrate him.

Well, glad that's settled.

What was Sam trying to do again? Oh yes, try to explain to me how he still loved me. I personally haven't the slightest idea what he thinks it has to do with anything. Loser.

"I," he paused again and then, door firmly closed, little bit of door frame moulding dangling off the end of the chain with the pulled-out hook. I took vindictive pleasure in that as Sam built up his steam. It looked like it was coming to a head... "I've thought long and hard 'bout this Leah."

"Oh, yeah? How'd that work out for you? The thinking, I mean. I wasn't aware they rented out brains, but the leeches are more haemophiliacs than anything else, so I may be out of the creepy-modern-science loop."

He ignored me. Idiot. You come over to a girl's house to profess your love for her and ignore her? Be still my heart, Casanova. And, yes, that was wholly unsarcastic too. Vodka... I needed vodka... the expensive stuff... and an entire season of Sesame Street – for the twins, that is, to watch while I was occupied. It's all Nessie's fault. If she hadn't gone and gotten herself born, Jake would've never broken with the original pack, and then Seth and Jake and I would've never had to spend so much time in the woods around the Cullens', and if thathadn't happened I wouldn't've gone all "girlie" again (and, yes, that's what I'm calling it) and then there would've been no twins, meaning we wouldn't've had to actually find a house and stuff to live at, meaning we wouldn't've moved back to the Rez, meaning Sam couldn't come and harass me like this when I was all alone, minus the twins and Sonia, who should be arriving soon and, hopefully, would be a too annoying presence to allow Sam's to get all weepy and decide that his attempt to hold civil discussion with me were beyond useless.

God, I wanted to get all angry – angry weepy even – and start yelling and phase and even kill the bastard for all he'd done (not to me, like I'd get weepy over myself but, God, he could have hurt Ness or the twins or gotten the pups hurt and he had, one way or another, gotten Matty hurt) but I couldn't. 'Cause I wasn't an irresponsible adult who wanted young children who wouldn't even know how to begin to protect themselves if something went wrong to be in any way, shape, or form involved in any argument I might get into with Sammy dearest that might involve claws. Damn him. 'Couldn't he have come some more convenient time? Like never. Never's good with me.

But then he started talking again, and I did my best to shut off my mind, to get rid of him that much faster. "I think the problem is, Leah, that none of the others had anybody. Paul was always a bit of a womaniser and Jared had stopped seeing what's-her-name-"

"Marian Ayock," I told him, then remembered that I was trying to ignore him to death, and bit my lip. If ignoring didn't work, I could regale him with the latest in the Cullens' fake inheritance controversy, wherein one of the people Edward was playing had been diagnosed with incurable cancer and one of the others had gone ahead and married Bella's character in all this (who I think they were calling Beatrice in this incarnation for some unexplained reason that made Alice giggle, Rose snort, and Edward roll his eyes) and the rest of the "family" was trying to have him written out of the will. This has resulted in Alice, Jasper, and Edward, each playing something like three people, having a shouting match on conference call (as their lawyers thought they were in Orléans, El Paso, and Bristol respectively, rather than opposite ends of the house) about just what they thought about that. And then add how they were going to have Benjamin and Felix be "born" into the family soon-

As angry as I am at Sam, I keep forgetting he's in the room, trying to explain something to me. That probably says something. Major Payne and Doctor van Helsing probably want to psychoanalyse me or something when they find out. That'll be-

And I'm doing it again. But, then again, I always have been good at suppressing painful things.

"That's it. Marian. Jared had stopped seeing her months before he started phasing, and as for Quil, he never mentioned anyone. So I was the only one with someone when I imprinted – and you know how that is. You've seen in our heads. It's like... It's like there's no one else but the person you imprint on."

I resisted the desire to say, "And I care why?" I knew it was true. I knew it all so well. I didn't really care, per-say, that I wasn't the love of his life, and that, for some reason the PTB had thought that I wasn't good enough breeding material for the Levite- After that thought I resisted the desire to be sick all over the new carpet. Alice would never forgive me.

"But that's not how it works," Sam continued, still rather moist, and sat down on one of the matching chairs, rather insuring, if Jake and I didn't kill him for coming to our house and saying these idiotic things to me, Alice would murder him for ruining the upholstery. Thank God for Alice. "I know," he said decidedly looking at a point somewhere over my left shoulder, not sadly or slowly or angrily, but with a touch of something I could far from name, though recognized clearly, having seen it in most of the vampires I'd gotten to know far too well. Maybe it was magic induced, or something to do with the whole the-world-is-not-what-it-seems – I dunno – but it was something like remorse and sadness and self-pity, and of misplaced nostalgia, and futility and and frailty and desire for things that were gone, and maybe a little bit of shame and sorrow and despondency all mixed together – something I'm sure that there's a word for but high school is too long ago for me to remember if we ever learned it, and things like college or the ability to even have an afternoon to myself to sit and read are too far out of reach for me to ever be taught it, but that's what it was. It's the same tone that Kate gets when she talks about her long dead cousin. Or Mary, when she talked of her brothers' war with the Mayflower colonists, or like Stefan and Vladimir when they were, well, talking about anything. Maybe it's cause of this I felt my feet even more solidly on the floor.

"It took me a long time to really get it, but I know you never loved me now. I should've known it a long time ago, but I guess I just didn't want to believe it. With the way you-" but he stopped himself, and I wondered what it was that he didn't want to say that had given him away. My general indifference to all things us related? The fact that I hadn't done anything to try and get him back? Or maybe he'd heard of my belief he and Edward had a thing that summer before the mind-raper and his peeps came to their senses and left. Of course, he also could have heard my thoughts on just what kind of a whore and/or idiot would fall into such a stupor when their stupid idiotic boyfriend up and left them for no reason, he could have just made the corollary. But I liked my ideas better. "I realize it now, though. You were always off in your own little world-"

Abruptly straightening, "I'm not crazy," I hissed, insulted. Kate was crazy, always talking about her long-dead incestuous lovers; Emmett was crazy, and if you need me to explain that there's no hope for you; Alice is certifiable. And those are just the most obvious. Okay, okay, so I may spend half the time in my head, thinking stupid thoughts like these, but I'm not crazy. Even thinking back over my "And then God made the vampires" idea.

Sam ignored my anger, though, as he always had. And he said I was the one in my own little world. Retard, "-and never gave a shit about anything you didn't want to. I think that's one of the reasons I fell in love with you. That, and that day in the lunch room-" He caught himself and derailed that line of thinking. I didn't know why he loved me. I only wanted to know why he still did. I think. Only so I could make him stop.

I didn't know what Jake saw in me either, even after being in his head for the better part of forever, or so it seemed. With Jake, though, it was okay, 'cause he was kind and sweet and hot and funny and all the rest. He didn't mind me being me, whereas, obviously, Sam thought I was crazy, just adding more flame to the fire that was my list of reasons why I was glad I had Jake.

Suddenly, I realized what I had done and started to lower myself back into my preparatory crouch. "I've never given you any cause to think I loved you," I said rather harshly. "And I don't care why you think you do. All I want to know is why you're here, rather than up at Uncle Eric's begging for Emily to talk to you again. And, if you're going to ask me to talk to dear cousin Em on your behalf, I'm going to tell you now that, first, I'm going to laugh in your face for a good half-hour, and then-" I felt something touch my back. At couch level. A blind hand lifted the offender to a position balanced on my hip. It was Di. "And then," I continued, "you and I, Diane, are going to have a long talk 'bout how you don't interrupt Mommy in the middle of mocking one's enemies."

"Why do you have to make everything so difficult?" anger was seeping into his world-weary tones.

"Why do I have to make things difficult? What part of me not loving you don't you understand? How many different ways do I have to say it-?"

"Yes, blame me, Leah, 'cause it was always my fault, wasn't it? I at least tried to make us work, to make you happy – though, by God, I know now what a futile effort that was. I swear, I'd almost think you enjoyed being miserable if I'd not been in your head. And, despite it all, I loved you – I still love you – and was willing to do whatever it took to get you to do the same. You can't just turn these things on and off. I didn't want to imprint on Emily-"

"Don't give me this shit. I know you had no choice. You're supposed to be whatever she wants from you. Not your fault Em wanted to be a two-bit whore. Mighta appreciated not finding out about it the way I did, but it's not like I was ever upset that I lost you-"

"You think I don't know that?" The furore was clear as he pushed himself out of the chair and, though I nearly sprung anyway, paced angrily to the window by the door. "What do you think it was like, everything in me telling me that I had to love Emily? Oh, it worked out fine when she was around, but take her away or bring you into the picture, and it was like – is still like – I want to hate you-"

There was a tightness in my chest. I could feel the couch against the back of my legs and was hyper-aware of the twins and how young and helpless they were and my nerves were screaming out (though God knows to who) not to phase. And it was like... "Go ahead and fucking hate me, Uley-"

"I want to hate you, I really do – you could've at least made a token effort – but I can't-"

"Fine then," I shouted, "don't hate me then. I don't care. Just stop trying to do things like kiss me or kill the people I actually don't mind having around, and get the mother-fucking hell out of my house-"

"You just don't get it. Hatred's not something you can turn on and off either-"

"Fine, for God's sake, I don't care. You still love me, you love Em more, got it, good, will you leave now?"

"I'm trying to fucking explain myself-"

"Not doing a very good job of it, are you?"

"Might do better if you stopped interrupting me."

"Wouldn't have to interrupt you if you were making an ounce of sense."

"You want all the dirty laundry then?" I almost made a point that I was surrounded by nice, clean, folded laundry at the moment, that I'd already had to do all everyone else's 'cause I was home all day anyway and (or so the thought went) might as well have something to occupy my time with, and that there was no way in hell I was going to wash anything of his, excepting maybe his blood, and that was only to get it out of the carpet as soon as I found a way to get the twins out of the way. It took all I could not to phase. "What I'm trying to get through to you is that Emily called off the wedding because of you, because she couldn't stand the fact that you were always-"

"Then try harder!"

"I have been, but when you-"

"Oh, make this my fault now. You're the idiot who wanted to kill Nessie – a fucking baby – and tried to kill me several times in the process. If that's your idea of love, I'm surprised Em's not more cut up than she is."

"You-"

"Yes, me."

"Why can't the two of us just have a simple conversation-"

"'Cause you, for some idiotic reason, think you love me. Now, unless you've got something useful to add-"

"Useful!" He turned away from the window. "I'm trying to explain to you-"

I fought the desire to roll my eyes. Sam had never had the best hold on his temper- "She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second hand store," suddenly sounded from nearby. I'd forgotten I'd put the phone back in my pocket, "Raspberry beret, and if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more," I pulled it out and, ignoring the look of furry that grew on Sammy's face, answered. "How in God's name did you manage that? 'Cause this is just too coincidental-"

"Manage what, Kiwi?"

"Kate? What are you doing?" I went from feeling like a very bored kindergärtner to one who was told she'd be getting ice cream for lunch. "Alice said you wouldn't be calling for-"

"I changed my mind," she said in a way that said full well that she enjoyed playing these kinda games with her cousin. "Anyway, my and Gilead's flight hasn't left yet, so, obviously, I won't be there in time to stop Alice ourselves, but I just talked to her and she said she's going to have what's-her-face? Sonia. She's going to have Sonia put in highlights-"

"Wait, slow down Kate. My brains on dealing-with-idiots level, but how is Alice going to tell Sonia anything? She's coming to my place, and she can't come on the Rez-"

"That? Oh, she probably asked Yisra'el if she could. I mean, did you think everyone was going to skip the ceremony? Of course not. It's on your land anyway. Not much point in it, since no one's going to be killing anyone on either side, and-"

"She can't come here!"

I could hear Kate frown on the other end, "Why not?"

"'Cause You-Know-Who is here!"

"Voldemort?"

Almost throwing the phone down. "Esau," I corrected, speaking her own insane language.

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?"

"I didn't think you'd expect me to have invited fictional Dark Lords over for tea instead." Speaking of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he was looking distinctly unhappier, and seemed to be catching on to the general idea of the call.

"Well, I didn't expect you to invite over your insane ex either, but... So, why is he there?"

"He seems to think," I wrinkled my nose, "he still loves me."

"That's-"

Sam seemed to decide this was a good time to interrupt, and said, in a tone that in no way belayed his earlier words, "The Cullens are coming? Here?"

"Yes, but-" But he was already flinging the door open and, with that I'm-about-to-phase shake about him, flew out the door.

Cursing, I grabbed the twins and rushed out after.


	21. Sin

"In a revolution, one triumphs or dies (if it is a true revolution)."

Che Guevara in letter to Fidel Castro

* * *

"Have you ever considered investing in a Bluetooth?" Kate asked me in an almost disinterested tone having just finished asked me what the weather was like (wet, what a surprise) in the exact same way.

I was running after my ex-Alpha down the streets of La Push at just-fast-enough speeds to worry any onlookers who might be on-looking, carrying a laundry basket filled with Seth's now shed-upon shirts and the twins underneath one arm and holding the phone to my ear with the other. "No, Kit-Kat, I haven't. Honestly, I see nothing detrimental about this situation at all – I mean, since when have I ever need hands for anything?"

"Just because you're frustrated, Kiwi, doesn't mean you have take it out on me. Go and find a babysitter and do something adult with Yisra'el. Hang on – let me pull the internet up on this crazy thing and see what movies are playing in Port Angeles."

"How about you call up Alice instead and tell her to head back home – why didn't she tell me she was coming? Oh, God, and what if she's brought Ness with her?"

"You're such a worry wart. And don't worry – Gilead is trying to get through to her now."

"Why do you call him that, anyway?"

"Gilead?"

"No, Bob. Of course Gilead, idiot."

"Jeremiah 8:22. 'Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?' It's long and involved, but call it a spiritual panacea. Though, I'll have you know, next time you complain about be wasting time during important things, I'm going to bring this up."

I could hear 'Gilead' in the background, protesting, "I did dial the correct extension."

"Well, it wouldn't give you the error message if you had. It's zero, one, and then the number," she told him, then, turning her attention back to me, "Considering the last time I was in Warszowa was just after Alexandre-ﾉdouard de Valois-Angoulême was elected the first rulerof Królestwo Polskie i Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie and told Anna Jagiellonka he wouldn't marry her, despite what the biskup Walencji of the time – what's-his-name? Jean de Montluc. Despite what Montluc had promised the lords... Anyway, considering that was back in the sixteenth century, I feel should be the one with the technophobia, not him."

"I thought the extension was zero-one-one, forty-eight, twenty-two."

Without moving her mouth away from the phone, she called back to Garrett, "That's to call Warszowa. To call from here it's just the normal zero-one."

I continued running after Sam, who was a good two blocks ahead of me, almost at the point where Hermison Road joined the one-ten, where that was a bridge that crossed the River. Unless he wanted to phase, there was no way he could ford it. He'd have to cross there if he was going to follow the road, where he might guess Alice (or whatever Cullens were involved in his believed invasion) would be coming from. If he thought they were running – id est, no roads – he'd probably phase as soon as he crossed the one-ten, not having to worry about any other major roadways people might spot a large wolf on, what with the woods as thick as they are in this part; he'd not have to cross the river until he was nearly at the one-oh-one that way, and, probably, he'd come across them long before – if they were coming that way. The simple fact of the matter was that running after anyone, especially your ex, while carrying your month-old twins (who, at least, looked a month old) in a laundry basket through the streets of town was not a good idea, especially when you were trying to hold a phone to your ear as your thousand-year-old maid-of-honour tried to explain to her boyfriend (who was a fourth of her age but looked seven, eight years older) how to call internationally from nine time zones away on the other end is not a good thing. I considered throwing the phone down, to at least be able to carry the basket with two hands, but I rather wanted to know when Garrett managed to get through to Alice and dissuade her from this (insanity proving) course, and I'd learned from previous experience that not paying attention to which contact you hit leads to time-consuming and, often, painful conversations with the leeches I tried to explain whatever I needed to. As chasing down someone who's likely create yet another Vampire-Lycan incident while carrying a basket full of bemused infants tends to be a bit distracting, I'd decided not to risk accidentally calling Emmett or, well, particularly Emmett, and having to explain this rather bizarre situation to him. Who knew what he would do if he found out – try to help or get a video camera?

But, human of wolf, I was still the fastest, and would, with all luck, catch him before had the chance to cross the one-ten and phase. If he did that, not only would I have to worry about him calling backup (in the form of Paul, who'd be pleased; Jared, who'd be saying this really wasn't necessary; and his pups, who were really too young for this, no matter how you sliced it) but I'd have to figure out what to do with Di and Dan, who I certainly couldn't leave home alone and most defiantly wouldn't leave alone in a forest full of crazy people, no matter if I could hear their semi-coherent thoughts or not. Stupid Sam! He coulda just said outright what he wanted to say – better yet, he coulda never tried to say it at all, and left me alone like most ex's do – and be done with it. But noooo, he had to go and be all weirder than usual, and make everyone's life a living hell and try to start another war. Why? Just because he could.

Stupid men.

I listened to Kate chatter to Garrett while waiting for Alice to pick up, really wanting not to have to do this. I mean, Nessie on the Ness on the Rez was one thing, but a real-life, full-blooded vampire? I really should've paid more attention to the wedding plans, I suppose, and thought ahead to something like this, but for some strange reason I'd gotten it into my head that they were having it at the Space Needle or the zoo or some other bizarre place, not somewhere on the Rez. I mean, leeches were planning the whole thing, and half the wedding party were leeches, so why would I think the ceremony might take place on a distinctly un-leech-friendly place like the Rez? I mean, sure, Jake and I and Seth and the rest might like the Cullens and not mind them coming onto our land, but there was still the whole matter of the treaty and the fact that Sam was unhappy that we'd even moved back to the Rez in the first place, so why did everyone seem to be willing to start a war over such a silly little thing as a wedding for a marriage that was already four months and two kids old? I bet this is all Rebecca's fault. She's flying in tomorrow with Rip, her Samoan banker-cum-surfer husband, for the ceremony. Rachel had given her my number (which she'd gotten from her brother, who seemed to have conveniently forgotten Becca's thirteen-year-old insistence we were perfect for each other) and, after a long I-told-you-so session, she'd somehow ended up with the Cullens' home number and had spent several hours since talking to Alice, who shared her sisterly sympathies.

I could just imagine Ness and her father sitting down to write the chapter in their werewolf history book about this: And so the rightful Alpha's sister, being unaware that her brother and sister-in-law were werewolves, suggested to the wedding planner (whom she was unaware was, like the maid-of-honour, a vampire) have their wedding on pack land. And the vampire wedding planner, thinking that with the rightful Alpha being the rightful Alpha and all would take care of the mess, agreed, without bothering to tell the Alpha female. And thus the third great Vampire-Lycan war began... Note to self: never answer calls from Kate in front of my fucking three-brain-celled ex again. Even better idea: kill Sam and be rid of the problem forever, and have one big pack 'cause, with Sam gone, there'd be no one to try to take the Alpha from Jake, and I'd be indisputably Empress of the Rez or whatever whatever you want to call me, even if Kate never gives me one of her old crowns.

"What do you mean voicemail?" said crown-withholding vampiress in a way that made it all to clear she had a Bluetooth, "Alice always has her phone with her, except for when she's hunting. And sometimes even then- Well, leave a message then and try jej mąż, pełnoletność. He'll be able to find her- Leah? You still there? Good. We can't get hold of Alice."

One-and-a-half blocks from Sam now, and about three from the highway, "Then try Jasper," I wanted to shout into the phone, but she told me they were already doing that, and to hold on just another second, and I was resting the urge to scream and throw something so badly – but I was more confused than anything else. "Are you sure that Alice said she was coming today?"

"Yes, yes," she said absently. "It was quite clear: she was having some sort of local woman go to your place to do your hair, and she was making sure that somehow or another she was going to frost it, or highlight it, or something odd – I tell you, cosmetology just isn't what it used to be. Why, when Tanya, Irina, and I were in Wien with Margarita Theresa von Spanien when she was married to her mother's brother, Leopold I, things were so much different. We were playing at being Lieselotte, Ermengarde, and Carlandra Abendroth from Drježdźany then, and that was when we were still rough about the edges with our dii and, well, we'd been planning on going to her brother's court. Her brother was Carlos II, who I've told you about, the Spanish king whose mother was also his first cousin and was descended eleven ways from Juana la Loca, and his mother had just become regent, so I suppose we would've met Carmen and Eleazzar then if we had, but we'd been clean for almost four years when we came across the real Abendroths and we couldn't just pass up an opportunity like the Holy Roman Emperor, especially when-"

Warningly, "Kate..."

"Oh, right," she seemed to catch the hint, which she never did, which only reiterated the seriousness of the matter. "Alice said she was having a local woman doing something to your hair and was making sure of it, and she had to go, 'cause she didn't See me calling as early as I did and that she wouldn't wait much longer for her."

"'She' wouldn't wait? Sonia?" I wasn't aware anyone outside of our semi-mortal clique where the Cullens lived. Or that the Cullens wanted any possibly food-worthy humans that they could possibly avoid knowing where they lived. The long driveway to their house was so full of switchbacks and dips and narrow passes that the humans who'd had to drive it before didn't like taking it at more than twenty or so miles an hour, and, if that was the case, there was defiantly no way that the hairdresser could have made it to the house from there in the time Alice said she would, and even if for some reason Alice was driving, they usually tended to go the speed limit when humans were with them in the car. "Are you sure the she Alice was talking about was her? Not Ness or Rose or Esme or someone?"

Huffily, "Well, at the time it struck me as anaphoric, but English can be very vague about those things. I've always felt língua portuguesa had a much better grasp on pronome, myself, considering-"

Just a block now from Sam, I took the time as I was crossing the road at the place where Hermison and the highway did a kinda loop-back thing about a half-mile from the bridge to pause misstep and ask Kate (very calmly give the circumstances, I might add), "Are you telling me that we just started a war because of poor grammar?"

"Vague grammar and precipitated, but yes."

Mind racing (how, pray tell, do you convince your ex, who is probably insane and was possibly only looking for an excuse to maul something, that the phone conversation he overheard that led to this desire was precipitatedby misconstrued pronouns and have him believe you?), it took me a moment to realize I'd stopped running, and an moment after that to realize that the thing I'd just about run into was a car that'd stopped in front of me.

I blinked, saw Sonia, who I only dimly recognized, the girl-who-was-probably-wondering-why-I-was-fleeing-on-foot-when-she-was-supposed-to-be-doing-something-even-Kate-thought-odd having been in Sam's year in school, and, without thinking, pulled open the back seat of her car and stuffed the twins' with their laundry basket into the back, and started to run around it.

"Leah!" she said with enough of a drawl that I remembered having wondered once if she was intentionally trying to sound southern or it was her actual accent, "What on earth are you-?"

I ran on, but she seemed to have enough sense to climb back into her battered, old red Ciera (too much time around Jake, I know, but I actually noticed this, and was slightly annoyed at my brain for taking the cells to realize this, rather than think of ways to catch and destroy Sam Uley, which it should be doing) and, bringing it about quickly, tried to drive along side me.

"-what do you mean Jasper says she's not there?" I could hear Kate asking Garrett as I still held the phone to my ear, mentally berating myself for having fallen back another block from my target.

"'Cause she's not. She went out."

"Did he say where?"

"I-"

Sonia rolled down her window and, trying to keep her car on the road, shouted at me, "What on earth is going on? Why did you-?"

Lowering the phone for just a minute, "Look, just go- just take the twins and go to Charlie, I mean, Chief Swan. He'll be at the station, or something like that. Take Di and Dan and just go-" With the twins safe, I could considerate on stopping Sam without worrying about their safety. Granted, I'd hardly call Sonia a close friend, but she was better than God knew what I was getting myself into. I had to keep the twins safe. I don't know what I would do if something happened to them.

"But-"

Unencumbered now by the basket, I went faster and brought the phone back to my ear, "Kate?"

"No. Garrett. Kate's talking to Jasper."

"Any news?"

"He says she went hunting. He doesn't know where, only that Irina-"

"Irina!" What did Irina have the fuck to do with anything?

"Yes. Apparently she wanted to try hunting for herself, or something like, before Kate came back. Something psychological about wanting to show her older sister she wasn't insane – he's trying to explain to her right now."

"Damn."

"You're telling me," and, perhaps realizing wars were best fought without wireless distraction, hung up. Which just goes to show you that while Kate may have lived in every royal court known to man and wolf, Garrett at least recognizes that Cullens are not one of them, and, no matter how rich anyone is, a long call from a cell phone in Warsaw to one in Washington is going to put a dent in somebody's wallet.

He was almost at the highway. I was little more than a block behind him, and Sonia's Ciera was going God knew what impossible human speed to keep up with me. I slowed just enough to toss the phone through her open window and begged her, "Just go to the station and, whatever you do, don't listen to a word Kate might say if she calls back."

She was about to say something – I dunno what – but even human eyes could make out Sam crossing the one-ten and phasing before he was even halfway in the woods. Instead, her words came out a muffled scream as she stomped her foot on the breaks.

"Shit," was my only explanation as I allowed the quivering anger to overtake me, until I too was phasing mid-step, glad there were no other cars on the road as I crossed the highway and chased after him. Mother-fucking, penguin-pinching, Santa-slaying sheep-shit and the like kept racing through my head. I may have been the fastest of the wolves, but at the disadvantage trying to follow his path through the forest he'd regularly patrolled in the last year and I, well, hadn't, and, knowing our luck, Sam had probably changed the patrol routes after Colin and Brady had gone, I dunno, whatever the appropriate parallel is, so it was no use trying to follow those, even if I could remember right now.

I couldn't hear anyone else, which was good in a way 'cause the rest of the pack was supposed to be at school and probably very bad 'cause, though Jimmy and John and what's-his-face, the third one, Tim probably had no more desire to fight me than I had to fight them, Sam would make them fight if he'd managed to call them out of school, where they should be, though God knew what insanity he might've cooked up if he was claiming to still love me. And Jared, well, I thought he wanted to defect a la pretty much any movie that I can think of off the top my head, but who knew for sure? Paul, though, would probably be happy to try and fight me no matter what the reason for kicking him in the groin that one time when I was six. I forget why I did that...

Back on track... back on track... Oh, God, this place was littered with their odd sand and surf and mowed grass and things that were far too calm and tame and normal for a mythical creature. Nothing like the heavy scent of pine and earth and musk (whatever the hell musk was anyway) that was normal and good and not something you might expect to find on a toddler after a day on the shore... So what was Sam doing, where, exactly, was he going, if even he knew, and why couldn't he make life easy on her? All she wanted was to hunt him down and stop a grammatically-caused war. Was that so hard?

There we are. His scent had gotten tangled – had he gone north-east, along the river, presumably to cross Goodman Mainline where it was closest to the water, where he'd not have to worry about houses and yards and pet dogs until he got to Anderson Ridge, if he bent south – no, that path was a patrol route, since it came closest to the border, and would bring us to places I knew better, the east side of Goodman Mainline being leech territory – he'd gone south, where there were more houses, where he could take advantage of shortcuts I'd long forgotten between tracts of land and, in one place (though God help me, I couldn't remember where) where you could go through a drainage ditch right through-

But, if he went south, he couldn't go much past Brady's dad's place, on the south end of Strawberry Bay, before he would have to turn east, if the Cullens' was his ultimate destination. Meaning he'd have to go through that woody triangle of land between Maxfield Creek, the one-oh-one, and May Creek, where the land was too rough for people but perfect for wolves and, when they were in need of a quick snack, vampires. There was little chance that Alice would be there if she had ended up taking Irina hunting, since it was too close to humans in case Irina had gone feral or whatnot in her two-odd months hiding in the attic, but, still, heading off Sam before he brought the great Pronoun Incident to painful fruition was good. Very good. And it was on our side of the Goodman Mainline, so he'd not know there was this great high spot where you could catch scents from miles away, one we'd always been sure to run our patrols through for that very reason, even if it was closer to human habitation than we liked to be when we patrolled...

Nevermind that I have no idea how to stop him. Talking, we've long since discovered, doesn't work with him. He doesn't listen. He hears only what he wants to hear. He still loves me, for God's sake. Reason doesn't work on idiots like him.

Which means we have to fight, and, as much as fighting Sam would do wonders for my misapplied anger issues, the fact still remains he is a large, Alpha-esque wolf, and whereas I'm, well, not. Most fights I've been in with Sam have had me mostly holding my own for a while, then either having Jake swoop in and save my ass or me making a less-than-graceful retreat. Oh, and I remembered the whole Alpha command thing, but that would only stop him so long as I, a) found him and b) knew what it was I was trying to stop. He mightn't be trying to kill anyone for all I knew. He might just want to "talk" with Alice too. I suppose it was still worth a shot, but...

Stupid vampires and their ambiguous use of pronouns.

Still, I took off running, leaving Sam to try his own strange way of getting there while I took the fastest route I could remember. I couldn't even begin to understand how this was happening. Well, I could see how he'd try and get rid of the leeches any chance he got, but-

-a noise. Rustling. Glimpse of movement. Sam?

No, that was only a deer moving up ahead. No need to get excited. Even if my heart was thundering in my chest and there was a sour tightness in my throat that I attributed to fear, it was only a deer. It was only Sam. Sam by himself couldn't do much damage, and- and who was I kidding? Some guy exactly like Sam was probability responsible for the fall of Troy. With machine guns and bombs and stuff like that, Sam could probably do much worse. Not that I thought Sam would be machine-gunning the Cullens. Mostly 'cause I'd no idea where one got machine guns.

Now there was a thought. Machine guns. I doubted they'd be of any use in fighting the magical forces of evil unless you filled the mag with shredder rounds and then set fire to what remained. Or incendiaries. Those might work. I'll have to keep that in mind in case Stefan and Vladimir go Volturi crazy.

Oh God! I'm sounding like Kate when she talks about how exciting it would have been if Maria Anna of Spain had been alive when her son Leopold married, she'd have been maternal grandmother, paternal aunt, and mother-in-law to Margarita Theresa- No! It's worse than that. I'm becoming Kate! Oh, God, kill me now! This is just entirely-

-another rustle. Another flash of movement. That deer is making far too much noise to be a deer, and what little flash of colour I'd seen was far too dark to be anything cervine-

Sam.

A burst of speed, a change of course that put the May Creek directly ahead, and then-

Sam! I called though I knew he could not hear me, feeling sluggish as leapt after him. Must find his secret shortcut. There's no way he could have out ran me, even if I'm a bit out of practice, what with the twins and all occupying most my time now. Still, I manage to catch his flank, causing him to loose his step on the slick mud and turn, growling, on me.

Seeing it's me, though, he backs off just a bit and, more surprisingly still, phases out. It's raining still, and instead of a rain-soaked wolf there's a naked, rain-soaked human male in front of me. "You heard them," he shouted at me as I got to my paws, shaking my head furiously. His eyes, normally hazel, were wild and dark in the greying light, giving me a better look than I'd ever have wanted as to what somebody escaped from Bellevue would look like. There was something wild there – nothing animal, not that kind of wild – like there was something wrong with him.

It was a look of a man on the edge of surrender to fate, of relinquishing all control over his actions to that thing screaming in his head what he had to do – but, whereas that instinctual voice had ordered me to fly back from Soul when Bella wanted me to save her daughter, to fight Alec's power of paralysis when he'd thrown it upon me during the battle, to keep the twins safe no matter what, his deliberately led down only one path: self-harm.

I got it now. I think it truly got it now. Whether what he'd said about loving me was actually true or not, whether he actually thought Alice and the Cullens were invading the Rez or not, he had given up. He'd been Somebody in high school, had been the darling of the Rez, had been the first to phase, the Alpha of that original pack. And now what did he have? An ex who'd taken up with the rightful Alpha, stolen the better part of his pack, colluded with his enemies, and was, despite it all, the one that was succeeding. The Elders wanted him to give up his pack to Jake, he'd lost Emily 'cause he'd never (or so he'd claimed) gotten over loosing me, and now it had to be all too clear to him that he was fighting a loosing battle. Jared, his very own Beta, would turn on him if able. His pups were only superficially attached to him. Paul only stuck with him, probably, 'cause he hated Jake more. He saw no recourse.

No recourse. Meaning that, when he'd told me he'd still loved me, he'd wanted me to angry at him. He'd wanted me to phase. When that seemed unlikely to happen, he'd been willing to pick a fight with the leeches to get what he wanted.

What did he want? A good mauling? The sympathy of being attacked? Was he going Münchhausen on us? - No. Sam had never wanted sympathy. Power was all he knew. Strength. Something one of the Cullens with doctorates would identify as superiority complex. He knew his cause was lost.

He wanted to be a martyr.

He was starting to make Bella look the picture of mental health.

I phased out, only some mud from where I'd landed after tackling him providing me with any modesty at all (which, I must point out, is little, especially when it's raining). With a forced calm, "Yeah, I heard them. I heard both sides of the conversation, actually. The "she" Alice had meant was Irina-"

"The one who sold you out to the Volturi?" Was that satisfaction lighting his eyes as he began to turn heel? Satisfaction that he'd been proven right? Satisfaction that he'd probably get his death wish, seeing as how Irina had consorted with red-eyed murderers? I did not know this man any more. I don't know if I ever really knew him, even when we were dating. He just happened to be there and we seemed to have had entirely different ideas about what it meant. I guess I just didn't want to be alone. And Sam? I guess he thought it meant something. Still, it severed only to make him look crazier.

"Well, she wouldn't've, you know, if you hadn't been your idiotic, snake-sucking self and let us stop her."

"She didn't know it was Rez land!"

"That's no excuse-"

"Oh, come off it, Sam. Emergencies know no boundaries and all that shit. But yeah, Kate had Garrett call and check with Jasper and Alice is out hunting. Probably to the east, where there're less people, and certainly not anywhere near La Push. So just stop trying to start a war here and go back home. Get cleaned up and find Emily. Tell her you're over this foolishness. Tell her that you'll try and go back to being the person she fell in love with, not this angry, obsessive – idiotic – person you've changed into."

He snorted, still not half looking at me, seeming somehow drab and lifeless, like the only thing alive about him were his eyes, his angry, obsessive, idiotic eyes that were seeing something that I could not see. Then, shaking his chest, came a grim laugh, not manic, but certainly uncontrolled. He laughed for several moments, while I stayed half-crouched, looking more Tarzan than anything human, I'm sure, before he said, "Change?" There might've been tears of laughter leaking from those crazed hazel eyes, but it might just've been rainwater. "There is no change. You may have forgotten, but I haven't. We're werewolves."

"How could I possibly forget that?" I asked, straightening a little. "There's werewolves and vampires and God knows what else out there – but we've seen it. The magic and the madness and the whatnot in the world. We've fought wars over it! Matthew Mora died because of it! But that doesn't mean we can't try to make it work!" I'd heard the leeches arguing political philosophy for the last few months. You'd've thought something would've stuck with me, but I couldn't remember any fancy words or arguments to convince him that just because we turned into monsters didn't mean we had to become them. "The Cullens aren't are enemies-"

His laugh was raking, dog-like. "No, you don't get it. We're werewolves. Not humans. Not even animals. We're something other. We don't get to be human. We don't get things like choice and change and peace. The only purpose our lives have is to fight vampires-"

"But the Cullens aren't normal vampires! If, as you say, we're not human, not animal, but something else, surely they're the closest thing to us there is. And they've managed to change. A little, at least. They don't drink from humans, the Cullens and the Denalis. And they've gotten others, since the battle, others that are trying to be like them-"

"And they'll always try. They can't change. Like we can never change. We are what we are – we have these instincts and these ideas in our heads and we can't fight them, not for long. We can love someone else but we can't be with them 'cause the magic or the madness or the whatever you call it in us won't let us. We can try to give the leeches chances, we can try to think they'll follow the rules, but they you know that they don't, that they won't, and you know that sooner or later they'll slip up, or you'll slip up-"

The only times I wanted to kill any of the leeches in recent memory was over enforced girl-time. Can't say I had the desire myself to go around killing the Cullens 'cause one of them might get it into their heads to kill us first. Preventive measures. "You're barking mad."

"I'm the only one who sees it-"

"So what, you going to go after them yourselves, when they're not even here, and kill them for no reason? Sounds like perfect sanity to me."

"You-"

"Look, you may be an idiotic, but even you have to know you'll get yourself killed if you try-"

"I have to try."

"You don't have to do this. You don't have to be a martyr."

"This isn't about martyrdom-"

"So you just want to fucking off yourself then 'cause Emily left you?"

"You don't understand-"

"Then make me!" I yelled. Angry tears welling in my eyes. I hated Sam, yes, and had thought fondly of killing him many a time, but that was when he'd distinctly had not wanted to die. Killing someone when they wanted to die was just- It was just wrong. There was death and there was murder and there were even mercy killings, but this was just, this was just something inhuman – immoral – unwerewolf, whatever you want to call it – and made me feel ill. I couldn't've felt sicker if he'd been on his knees before me, begging me to kill him. "Make me understand, Sam. That's what you've been fucking trying to do all afternoon!"

"You can't get it – not until the instincts are telling you to do something you don't want to do, to hurt someone you-"

"Those aren't instincts you mother-fucking retard, that's insanity. Stop this nonsense and we can go – right now – and get your head looked at."

Sharp laugh; fake, sour laugh. I think I heard a man on TV laugh like that once when he was told his enemies would pardon him after he'd already snuck the poison. I didn't think Sam was that desperate, but... "You say think that, but it's not true – even if you actually thought the lot of us wouldn't be locked up the first time they found out about any of this," he waved his hand, as if to say, werewolves, vampires, and other assorted magics. "It's not so bad now, but before, it was so hard-" He stopped himself.

"What was so hard?"

He shook his head, biting his lip nervously. After a moment, "Did you marry Jake because you love him?"

"That's none of your God-damn business."

"Isn't it? Did you marry him 'cause you love him, or did the hormones and the pheromones and the instincts get to you, and you got caught up in the passion? Does Jared love Kim for all the reasons I'm sure he has to love her – or is everything that was once him, once human silent, and he has no choice about it? What about Quil, hmm? Does he ever pause to think about how stupid and ridiculous and vile it is he's fixated on a four-year-old girl? I know for my part that I love Emily because I have no choice and, sometimes, when it's been a while between when I've phased, or when I'm the only one on patrol, I still find myself thinking I love Emily, but she's nothing like Leah and I want her to be like you. Or I want you to be her. Or something like that. It doesn't make sense but that's the truth of the matter. So how can you expect us to live like this? This isn't living. We're not even animals any more. We're machines-"

He paused.

I began to retort, but then I heard it, what he'd caught before I did, what had made him pause, and break off running, phasing as he went, me but two steps behind him: my name, called out by a sharp, bell-like voice from just ahead.


	22. Tav

Part One: O, Death...   
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."   
Pooh thought for a little. "How old shall I be then?"   
"Ninety-nine."   
Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Dad's funeral was the first big event on the Rez after I started phasing. It happened 'cause I phased, you know. The shock of it all got to him, and him with a weak heart to begin with. I don't know why it was, just that it was something Mom always said since I was little, in a joking way. Like when Dad and Billy and Charlie would get together for a big game at our house and they'd be shouting and carrying on worse than us kids ever did. Mom would come in from the kitchen, where she'd be seeing to it that we kids ate something proper, unlike our fathers, or from her bedroom, where she'd be trying to read with plugs in her ears, and she'd march into the living room and be all, "Boys, don't you think you should tone it down a little? I don't think my heart can take much more excitement," and then she'd look pointedly at Dad, who'd grumble for a moment but "tone it down" until about five minutes after Mom stomped back to wherever she'd been stomping from. They'd continue this for most of the night, until about fifteen minutes before the end of the game, when Mom would come in and, in that way people put up with things that their loved ones like for their sakes, join in with them. Not because she was excited about the game and however it was ending, but because Dad was happy, and that made her happy.   
That's one of the reasons Becca has given for insistence over the past thirteen years that Jake and I should get together: basically, like mother, like daughter. If Mom and Dad could have their weird arguments and love each other, then me and Jake, who I argued with, I suppose, more than anyone else in Becca's mind, had to like each other that way too. (Yes, that was Becca's argument the year I started sixth grade. The year before had something to do with cookies, and the year afterwards, in addition to the first two, involved the same soap opera Ms. Call got Embry's name from.) I guess she was right all along, but, God, she's flying in tomorrow and, unless I'm very much mistaken, doesn't know a thing about us being werewolves or her twin being "involved" with one herself. I think the story Alice told her while they were planning unspeakable wedding horrors is that I work for the Cullens in some capacity and, apparently, they're bankrolling all this 'cause they like me so much. I think. Hope to God the twins don't phase in front of their aunt the week she's here.   
But, regardless of whatever Becca thought about it, I guess Dad's heart was always weak. He was and Elder, and had been once since his dad passed the year after Seth was born. I don't remember Grandpa Aaron, but he was old, and I'm pretty sure he died of a heart thing too, so I guess that's why Mom always pestered Dad about his.   
Not that it worked in the end. God! He was an Elder. He knew the legends as well as anyone. Grandpa Aaron hadn't been too old when the the last of the old pack passed away, so he probably could've remembered his uncle Older Quil phasing. Probably. He might've told Dad some of those stories. And Dad, being an Elder, had to have known what was going on with Sam and Paul and the rest of the early phasers – the Levites, Emmett calls them – and didn't tell me. Didn't tell anyone. But he had to have thought Sam and Paul and Jared Uley have all phased, as have Embry Call and Quil Ateara and Jacob Black. They are all great-grandchildren of the last pack. My grandmother was Older Quil's sister. I wonder if my Seth might phase too and maybe try to warn us – or at least remind us of the old legends.   
Maybe he did tell Seth something of the sort. Dad wasn't perfect. He loved me very much, I know, but he'd no reason to think I might phase. Hell, he'd probably little reason to think Seth might phase at all. But we both did, and the troubled heart his dad had given him couldn't handle the shock of it.   
The funeral was terrible, the newness of phasing making it hard to control when our emotions ran rampant (and still hard; I don't think I could stay human now if I tried, but that's a stupid thought, I must-), and mine had never been too steady to begin with. It was in that old converted church where the old folks have their bingo and people like Rebecca have their fake flower arbours. And I had to sit in the front row, with Mom and Seth, and try to make sense of it all.   
If the PTB wanted me to be a werewolf so bad, why'd they do it in a way that cost me Dad? What kind of God, or benevolent, Rez-saving power does that? If it was all for the Rez, why kill one of its Elders?   
Why did I have to phase? No girl had ever phased before. Until Judy and Di, I had thought- well, I'd thought all sorts of things about what this meant for me.   
Why did the Cullens have to come back?   
Why did there have to be vampires and werewolves at all? Wasn't the world enough without our monstrosity? Without magic? How did magic and monsters help anyone anyway? Magic doesn't just come from nowhere. There has to be some sort of PTB behind it – but what kind? What kind, if death means nothing to it? If death means nothing, what does life mean?   
But those arguments came later. The only thing I could feel that day was that I'd kill my daddy and I might've been legally and adult and I might've known I'd not held a knife against him, a gun to him but I'd killed him all the same.   
Mom and Seth and I were in the front row, and Charlie and Billy too, as Mom and Dad's closest friends, helping Mom, 'cause (though Charlie didn't know it at the time, though it was in different ways) she'd just lost her husband and her children all in the same day and she wasn't doing too well. Behind us, 'cause they were Seth's best friends, were Quil and Embry and Jake. Mine weren't there simply 'cause I had none any more. I'd hardly spoken to Becca or Rachel since they'd moved away, and I didn't even have Emily any more, 'cause of Sam. So Quil and Embry and Jake had lumped me in with Seth, I guess, and were trying to do the best for me they could. Which was nice, 'cause I think they were all sort of a scared of me.   
Still, it was awful, the funeral, and the actual lowering of the coffin- that was too much for me. I didn't cry, but I thought I could feel myself breaking down, cell by cell, inch by inch. I snuck off as soon as I found a way to.   
The headstone came three weeks later, and I found myself coming back to the cemetery all that week to stare at it, flat and grey and smooth as it was with his name and vital statistics sunk into its surface and the quote

...and I Shall Dwell in the House of the Lord Forever.  
that seemed to mock me every time I looked at it. Why, I wanted to scream, and would've if there was anything but a field full of decaying corpses and small stone monuments to scream at, why couldn't he dwell with me for just a little longer? I was still his little girl. I still needed my dad. I needed him now more than ever. I needed Mom to stop crying, and Seth to be happy again, and everything else to be as it was, which it would be, if he wasn't dead. I couldn't even be angry at him for being dead and causing all these problems, 'cause I was the one who'd made him that way.   
The fourth day after the tombstone was installed was one of my patrol days. I'd intended to go, I really did, but I guess I just lost track of the time. About an hour after I was supposed to be gone, Sam tracked me down. He'd every right to be angry, what with the creepy she-leech making an army in Seattle at the time, but what he said, I'll always remember.   
"It's our job to protect the living, Lee. Stop wasting your time with the dead."   
"You didn't see me giving you such a hard time 'bout your mom," I told him, waving my hand to towards the plot three rows down where Lauren Uley was buried. It was a weeping angel, not hard to miss.   
I didn't know why he got to angry then, I was already getting up to go, making my way towards the nearby tree line. "That was before," he said roughly. "We don't have the time to waste now."   
"Waste? That's my dad the-"   
"No. That was your dad. Unless you want the rest of the Rez to wind up like him-"   
"Screw you, Uley," I'd shouted at him, stomping off towards the forest.   
He caught my arm, roughly, and between our momenta I was forced to spin back to look at him. His face was steeled, his eyes carried a glint of what would become the madness in them now, but I thought nothing of it then. He'd cheated on me. Betrayed me. So what if I didn't love him? It was still hurt. Everything was still too raw for me to be able to deal with his shit. But shit he fed me. "I don't care if you're upset with me, I'm still your Alpha and when I say-"   
"Upset with you!" I pulled my arm away and nearly slapped him with it, "This has nothing to do with you, Sam. Dad is dead and I'm upset about that, but don't go deluding yourself into thinking this is all some elaborate plot to get back at you, Sam. As far as I'm concerned, you're nothing." I resumed my stomp towards the woods. "Far as I'm concerned, it should be you that's dead."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Part Two: ...Where is thy sting?   
Still with his eyes on the world, Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.   
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I - if I'm not quite" he stopped and tried again, "Pooh,   
whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?" "Understand what?"   
"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"   
"Where?" said Pooh. "Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.   
A. A. Milne A House on Pooh Corner

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Shortly before things went to Hell in a hand-basket, though, there was another funeral. One centred around the statue of the angel, body thrown over a weather-worn block of something that used to be white but is mostly grey now, pretty face mostly buried in thin, weak-looking arms. I 'pose if there are actually angels, they can look as weak as they want and it won't matter, but from what I know of these things, even tiny little Alice looks strong compared to this sad, weeping figure. The very idea there might be angles too in all of this makes me a little sick. There are vampires, which can live forever, though about five thousand seems to be the closest to "ever" any of these have ever come. There are us werewolves, who, for the best we know, can manage three or four lifetimes before we die – but, for what we know, they weren't inundated with as many vamps as we are, and defiantly not for as long as we probably will be (what did Rose tell me that one time? That when they were last here, before Alice and Jasper joined them, they were only here for, what? Five years? Not even that. Five years is their limit for any one place. Terra del Fuego, Ellesmere Island, a stint or three in various parts of Alaska – no matter how remote, never more than five, in case someone caught on. They were here barely three when our great-grandparents were alive. It's been almost five now, and they've no plans to leave yet. Not until their ice palace on the shores of Aishihik Lake was done, which might take a while, considering that they're building it themselves so that no human contractors will know where they live, and non of them plan on heading up there any time soon. Except for Heidi, who thinks it'll be like Sweden or Denmark or wherever the hell she's from. She wants Felix to come with, but I don't think Felix likes her quite that way- Anyway, they'll be here for a few more years, at least). Even after we leave, I like Ness and Kate, and there might be non-creepy clandestine visits... We could live for a long time.   
What I guess I'm trying to get at is, most vampires bad. Werewolves exist to kill bad vampires. If angels exist, they'll probably have their own natural enemies, and demons on their best days sound like the Volturi on their worst. Maybe I'm prejudiced from all of Nessie's religious studies (God knows how), but no matter how weak and weepy and worthless the statue looks to me, it means something to people. Angels, I mean.   
Does it make me a monster, I wonder, if I can only look at it and think: is this an enemy? how would I fight it? what other dangers might lurk in its wake?   
It meant something to Dad, the angel. At least, I think it did. He was sorta-religious. At least, more so than the rest of us. (My cousin Adam belongs to some cult-like church with poisonous snakes and stuff, I think... but that's neither here nor there). He must've been more than just a Christmas-and-Easter Lutheran too, 'cause I'm pretty sure that he had the whole funeral planned – Dad did that kind of thing. He was happy-go-lucky most the time, like Seth (like Filips de Schone), but practical at times. That practicality extended mostly to fishing and, apparently, funeral arrangements, but still there extended – and had been the one with the bright idea of putting part of Plasm Twenty-Three on his tombstone.   
Is there life after death? Is that why the PTB let Dad die? Ness says that the only reason heaven and hell were exist is because of the sublimation of the inherent apocalyptical nature of early Christianity – but that means nothing to me, even less than then the angel.   
I understand the weeping, though.   
The grave-marker has been there for a long time. A long, long time. On the right side, there's Levi Uley's name, and his wife. Edna, or maybe Edith. I don't remember so well. They died within a week of each other. That I do remember. He was thirty-five when they married. She was twenty-three. An imprint relationship I learned later.   
And on the left, you have their son, Isaac, and his wife Nancy. Their other son, Peter, died in the war. His remains are on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Isaac was in the war too, and Old Quil says that it may have been the liver that got to him, but the war had killed him long before his body stopped moving. I take it their marriage wasn't sitcom worthy, but they're still buried next to each other. That says something. Even if there marriage was nothing more than their bodies' side-by-side interment.   
There are religious things under each pair of names. I want to know how Sam's great-grandfather could believe in angels if he was like us. Or maybe he was like me, and thought: is there danger?   
I don't know. All I do is that Dad is gone, and so's Levi and his wife, and their sons, and everyone else in that cemetery. Dead. Gone. No coming back.   
I wonder what Dad would say if he'd live to see Di and Dan-   
I wonder what Mrs. Uley would say. Her funeral was the last big thing on the Rez before we all started phasing. And, unless Sam's dad finds his way back from wherever he's gone, she'll be the last one buried at the statue of the weeping angel.   
Mrs. Uley was too good a person for her husband. She and Mom were cousins and grew up together on the Makah Rez, and it was cause of her that Mom met Dad in the first place... She was a dancer, Lauren Uley, when she was young. By the time she was a teenager, she was at some fancy ballet school on the outskirts of Seattle and only came home for vacations and long weekends. But that was all it took, Easter vacation her junior year.   
She always regretted not finishing school, she told me once. Said she thought it was love at first sight. Said that she thought things were fine those first five years, living on a different Rez than most her family (Jake's mom was another cousin of hers, but from a different side, but not as close, and Mom and Dad didn't get married until that December). She said that she didn't question Joshua working so many late nights up at the canary in Port Angeles, not until Sam started kindergarten and she'd time on her hands she'd not had before she began to suspect what was going on (about the same time Beth Call moved to the Rez with baby Embry). It wasn't until they diagnosed her with ovarian cancer the next year she confronted him about it. And nobody from the Rez has seen hide nor hair of him since.   
Her cancer remissed twice since then. This was her third relapse. The doctors had thought her lucky to make it through the first two bouts, and there'd be no lucky third. Sam spent most of his senior year taking care of her, and people would say what a better person than his philandering father, his alcoholic granddad he was. I know he liked people to like him. Maybe that's why he's like this now. He's made mistakes and refuses to learn from them, and now no one likes him. Maybe not even the people on the Rez who don't know about our secret lives. Look at Sam Uley, they must say. It was nice of him to take care of Lauren while she was dying, but it's been years now. What is he doing with himself? Don't think he has a job, or goes to school. Just keeps strange hours and shacks up with the Makah girl, the one with the scars – except she's gone too. Must have found out what he does that keeps food on the table – if he does anything at all. It's probably drugs. He probably sells them to the kids down in Forks, or even Mount Rainer Tech. No better than his father, they probably say now. Maybe even worse. Joshua may have done wrong by his family, but at least a wondering eye doesn't kill anyone.   
It's strange the things you remember. I remember Sam calling and telling me his mom had died. It was March, right before Spring Break. He was broken up over it. As broken up as Mom and Seth and I would be later, when Dad died.   
I handled all the arrangements that needed arranging, but Mrs. Uley had long known this was coming, so there was very little to be done. There was no numbness, no sorrow like at Dad's funeral, just the thought repeated through my head: I saw you the day before you died, Mrs. Uley. You looked no worse. No better, but no worse. And now you're dead and never coming back. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I did not know you well, but you are gone, and I'll never know you better.   
Sam managed to hold it together throughout the funeral. He wouldn't've been Sam if he hadn't managed that. He went home as soon as it was politic to do so. I stayed. I held down the fort, what there was to hold. I watched the gravediggers pile the dirt over her coffin. Not because it was what I should've done Sam's girlfriend – I'd probably have gone with him if it was for him. No, it was for her. A woman I did not know well at all, though she'd told me things she mightn't have told her son about his father.   
This is what she said to me the day before she died: "They need to be grounded, Uley men. Idealists, all of them. I see that now. Nancy said to me once that her husband thought he was fighting a black-and-white war, one where there was good and there was evil and nothing was grey. Then he saw that the 'good' guys weren't always so good, and he never recovered. They say his father was even worse, though there was no war. Joshua – well, he wanted the perfect family, I guess, or the perfect wife, or something like that. Something that kept pushing him to all those other women. But no woman was ever perfect... I'm glad Sam has you, Leah. You'll keep my son in line. Maybe even make him happy."   
I visited her grave once, shortly before exams, to make sure they'd gotten the inscription right.   
After running double patrol the day Sam found me in the graveyard, I went back, but not to Dad's grave. It was three, four in the morning, and the moon was beginning to set, but I what did it matter? I'd no school, no job, no anything to worry about any more.   
I went to the weeping angel and, kneeling close, touched my fingers to the epitaph:   
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.   
and said, "I'm sorry," before turning right back around and leaving.   
I hadn't noticed Jake, who'd been on my second patrol with me, had followed me. "For what?" he asked, startling me as I left the cemetery.   
"Fuck you, Black," was my reply as I turned for home.   
"Don't tell me I scared the great Leah Clearwater."   
"You didn't. So fuck off."   
"You know," he continued, dogging my steps, "I think I did."   
"Since you're so obviously confused, I should probably tell you that stalking is a leech habit. As is lurking about graveyards. Disgrace to werewolf kind, you are."   
Loosing the cheek, "You said you were sorry."   
"So I did."   
"Why?"   
"What the fuck do you care?"   
"It's called sympathy, or compassion, or some other shit like that, Clearwater. You should try it sometime."   
I rolled my eyes. "Go home, Jake."   
"Only if you do."   
"What are we, five?"   
"Well, if you'd rather stay, you can deal with Sue's where-were-you-all-night speech by yourself."   
"Like you'd be there for it anyway."   
"Ah," he said smartly, "that's where your wrong. Dad enlisted me last night to drive him to your house this morning with vast amounts of breakfast food, as if doughnuts will speed the mourning process or something. But, if you want to go the leech route and 'lurk' in graveyards, I will conveniently forget and enjoy chocolate-covered pastry goodness all by myself."   
"Fine." I paused. "There's something wrong with you, I hope you know."   
"Sure, sure."   
He was actually quiet for a while as we walked together. For some reason this made me tell him, just before the turn-off towards our separate houses, "I promised Sam's mom I'd keep him from doing anything stupider than usual. I failed. Obviously."   
"Obviously," he agreed.

And now I'm going to have to apologize to Mrs. Uley again. Not only can't I stop her son, it's going to have to be him they lay to rest next to her. If only I can stop him before he stops Nessie.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Part Three: O, Grave...   
"Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;   
where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
The wind was shifting, coming from Neah Bay now, bringing with it darker clouds, and the drizzly rain that was common to this, the north-westernmost corner of the continental United States, was becoming heavier, with cold drops that actually had weight to them, that plopped where they landed and puddled quickly. Sitka Spruces (tall and old even when Ephraim Black's grandfather, How-yat'l, signed the Treaty of Olympia, which made the Quinault Rez about fifty miles south of La Push to which our tribe was still refusing to move to when Ephraim was chief, until Grover Cleveland just let us stay where we were – the things you remember from sixth grade history, and when) shook like dogs, sending a flurry of droplets upon us, though their canopy was thick and green above us. The light was greying, and, had we been human, it would've been near impossible to see much farther than my nose. Everything was wet pine and slick mud and stray locks of hair plastered to the face, but, as the wind shifted, you could still catch Nessie's not-quite-human, not-quite-vampire scent of spring showers and white orchids and something fluffy, like a bunny rabbit, and even more than her voice, it was like a homing beacon. There was an übersweet scent too, but it was too faint to be of anything more than a fleeting moment of hope that someone was chasing after her, someone that could get Ness away for me or hold Sam back while I got Ness away-   
Too far. Too old. Too faint. Too cold. And Sam wouldn't stop; he'd never stop. Levi Uley had wanted perfect justice and died without it, or so Laura Uley had told me. Maybe the desire for perfection was genetic, or well-taught, or something they all picked up through their own father's failings, but Sam had it too. (I know it's pointless, especially now, to wonder why the I wasn't good enough for him to imprint on me if he loved me – if he still loves me like he claims. I'm happy with Jake, God knows I am; happier than I've ever had any right to be, but I want to know why I had to go through all that pain first. I want to ask the PTB why, on top of everything else, I had to go become that numb. Why it couldn't have just let me deal with things my way. Why it couldn't have let Dad live – why it had let Rosalie's fiancé and his friends rape her to death – why it had let Alice's parents throw her into an asylum and call her dead – why it had let Esme's first husband be so cruel that she'd tried to kill herself, and this Esme of all people – why it had let Emmett be utterly senselessly attacked by that bear – why it had let Matty Mora, who shouldn't have died, who wouldn't've if I'd just been been better or stronger or faster or anything other than what I was. I wanted to know-)   
Slip-sliding barefoot in the mud, Sam was already turning and fully phased by the time he was facing Nessie's direction, a large swath of already-damp black fur bounding off towards May Creek. My thoughts may have been tangled messes, but my body was working off the instincts Sam so decried: no sooner were his forepaws scrambling for purchase than my own was twisting and chasing after him, my mind too slow notice the change in feel of cold rain droplets against skin to that of thick, pelting drops falling against fur.   
Before my mind cleared of funerals and promises, was lunging, and it was, for several interminable moments, two wolves fighting, everything human between us discarded. It didn't matter that Ness wasn't even human, hell, that even after Charlie and Mom married she wouldn't be related to me, not really. It was, for me, all it had ever been: that she was a child and needed to be saved. It was the same with Sam, but they weren't seeing the human in her, in any of the leeches, and his were screaming: enemy, kill.   
He wasn't more than three yards ahead of me when I sprang in a running tackle, catching his right flank with my left shoulder, tumbling him more out of surprise and a bit of a slope than any strength on my part – and he knew it. One moment, then two, tangled together in the ferns that grew at the bottom of one of the larger spruces (or maybe a fir, or something else – I certainly didn't know), and I swear I could feel the tiny, scratchy spores catching my fur. Enough of a pause for my heart to slow a little, the adrenaline begin to cease, before the wind gusted against and, yes, she was closer now, and those chasing her still too far away.   
He was on his paws quickly, hackles raised as he snarled at me.   
I was on mine too, but, even with the advantage of the high ground, he was still the taller. The tree was at his back, yes, but I'd no certainly Paul wasn't phased and coming to his aide, or even Jared, who just wanted this all to be over with-   
I wanted this all to be over with. He'd just keep coming, and coming, and coming as he had until he finally found us at some disadvantage or we made some stupid mistake, and then-   
It was like the Volturi. We maybe could've talked ourselves out of trouble when they came, but they would've come back, stronger and angrier and with our excuses running thinner. He had to be stopped, and now, before he got anyone hurt, before anyone else got killed, be it me or Nessie or his cubs or mine.   
Lips curling back, he growled what was, even without being on his mental frequency, clearly a, Out of my way.   
I growled right back, No. Stop this. Stop this now, Sam. That's an order, hoping to God that posturing would be all that it took. Wolves fought in packs, not as single entities. We were stronger as a group. That didn't stop the fact from remaining, though, that Sam was the Alpha of the La Push pack, by size and strength and blood, and I had only married into the position. I psychically couldn't take him in a fight, and, when I had to in the past, I'd only survived by running away or my pack coming to my aide. I knew this. He – if he was still sane enough – knew this. Alpha commands had been broken in the past (when he was giving them, when Jake and Seth and I had splintered off) and could be broken again ('cause I wasn't the true Alpha: Jake was) I was sure; as much as I was a fan of the First Amendment, I think breaking it to stop infanticide was a good reason.   
Maybe he he was still sane enough to fight it off, or maybe my own uncertainties had made it fail (or maybe even he was too far gone for him to even notice), but it didn't work. And, if Alpha commands wouldn't stop him-   
Even if Kate was in Poland, she knew of my predicament. So did Garrett and, by the sound of it, Jasper. Garrett and Jasper were sensible vampires. They'd do something to help – unless Garrett was helping by trying to keep Kate from causing a scene, and Jasper had gone after Alice and Irina, 'cause he thought that's who Sam would be going after – unless no one knew that Nessie had left (no, there was someone chasing her; well, in that case, if no one knew what Nessie was running towards. She and Emmett could just as easily be playing vampire tag. But why, then, would she be calling my name?) - unless there was nothing they could do.   
God, hopefully Sonia had listened. Hopefully the twins were with Charlie and safe. He might even get what was going on out of the hair dresser and try calling the Cullens himself. Or he mightn't get anything out of her and try calling the house to figure out why she'd brought my infant children to him and, when that failed, call the school to get Jake. Or call Billy, 'cause Jake was in school, and Billy'd call Jake, or maybe he'd just call Mom and Mom would probably take them home or to Charlie's and then it could be ages before anyone realized-   
I am a werewolf. I know how to fight. I'm not saying that I don't. Only that Nessie his heading this way and, without another pair of paws, she'll get here before I can stop Sam all on my lonesome, and, when she does, he'll go after her. there will be more than a good chance that he'll mange to hurt her before I can stop him then. If I can stop him.   
We stay like that for a moment, snarling at each other.   
I know the leeches are coming, he seems to say. We must kill them before they kill us.   
Growling back, The only one they're going to kill here is you if you don't stop. I say stop in my best Alpha tone, thinking as hard I can what I want him to do. It's still not working.   
If you're not with me, you're with them.   
They're not the enemies here!   
Then who? he seems to ask, as if he might've gotten the just of what I was saying. Werewolves exist only to protect La Push from the Cold Ones. If we can't do that – if we don't do that, what are we for?   
We're still protecting the Rez – from the non-veggies, from European werewolves the Volturi tried to kill off, from, I dunno, the bogeyman and demons and were-rabbits. There are tonnes of terrible things out there, and we can stop them when they come, but we can't do that if we kill our allies!   
This last growl is louder, almost mocking. Allies! I think it means. For all I know he could've been shouting Death! or Grilled Cheese!, but it seemed to fit the conversation I was having on my side. It doesn't much matter, though, for as he shouted it, he charged forward.   
I staggered back, half having expected it, and raised myself onto my hind legs as his forepaws slashed at where my neck had been. Howling in anger, I slashed right back-   
My claws raked him, but it was nothing but fur as he pulled back before I could rip out his guts. For a suicide risk, you're making it awfully hard for me to kill you, y'know, I told him rather angrily, slipping a little as my paws slammed into the mud. It traitorously twisted my body just enough so that, as I raised my head to butt him backwards, to make him go belly up through force if he'd not take commands, he was able to get his teeth in me. Hard.   
The only thing I can say is that, at least, it wasn't my neck. No, it was the spot between my shoulder blades, which was almost worse, but did have the advantage of being a place he couldn't easily paralyse me from. At least, probably can't. Who knows what crucial nerve mass that place might be when I'm human? I was running with the won't-be-paralysed idea and tried shaking myself like wet dogs do, to see if that might throw him off, you know? No luck. Though I could move my head, I couldn't get it anywhere near close enough to do him bodily harm in return, and ditto for the paws. I was wearing the "dog tag" Jake had gotten me for Christmas, so I suppose if I shook hard enough I might be able to hit him with the pendant, but I'm pretty sure shaking hard enough to manage that would likely lead to serious brain damage. Like Quil-level damage. This so totally sucks. If it wasn't for the fact he wants to die so badly, I'd kill him for this.   
So, what do I do? Teeth are a no go, so are claws, and I can seem to shake Sam loose... If there were any of the rest of my pack here, this wouldn't be happening. One them could just-   
-just what? I'm not sure, and it kinda hurts to think when someone seems intent on paralysing you. I know I shouldn't really complain, but if he's so stupid he doesn't realize he's not really doing anything but being a pain in my... back, he would've won a Darwin Award long before this. I mean, he's fought things and lived, things that were a lot stronger than me. He's lived so far, so he must know how to fight things. Which means he's not really trying to do me (significant) bodily harm. Which means I'm currently on the loosing side of a fight he's not even giving his all too, which is just pathetic, and I'll never live it down (unless he decides it'll be more fun to kill me than die himself, which, since he's crazy, remains a possibility) if the pack finds out about this.   
Obviously, the only way to live this down is for it never to happen, and, for it never to happen, I need to win here. So how to win? More specifically, how to get Sam to release me so I can maul him in turn? Ideas, ideas, ideas...   
The wind was blowing in darker clouds, and there was so little light that the greenness of the forest had faded into shadow and, though I knew there were trees all around me, I could only clearly make out the one Sam and I were fighting beneath, and, even then, the details weren't so clear. The rain, if possible, started to fall harder, until it was like sharp spears where it met my fur, and, almost louder than our growls, it was starting to thunder – a real storm, not just the perpetual drizzle of the Pacific Northwest. Even without the occasional flashes of lightening, I cold still make out all that I needed to – Sam, things I could run into if I moved – but werewolves weren't all about seeing. Hearing helped some, every shudder of the ferns underfoot, the splatter of rainwater as Sam shook in attempt to either kill me or dry off, but smell... Smell was the shizzle of werewolf senses, even if it did mean the leeches were more repugnant than they had to be.   
God, I just used the word shizzle. He must be cutting blood off to my brain. That has to be it. My wiggling probably hasn't helped.   
Okay, step one, stop wiggling.   
Now what?   
...   
Yeah, I got no ideas either. Except this playing dead thing. I mean, it certainly hurts me less not to wiggle, and he doesn't seem to be doing anything other than trying to paralyse me, which-   
Wait – is he beginning to let go? That didn't take long (not that I'd expect anything else from him). Ooh, he thinks he's hurt me or something (like Leah Clearwater would go down with all her limbs still attached). Yep, he's definitely easing up. Hopefully he's not going to get all emotional or something thinking he killed me. He did claim to still love me after all, the groin-sucking duck-raping douche-bagging puss-eater. Unless he really is broken up over "hurting" me (which, this being Sam, he might very well be) he'll probably go straight after Ness. Can't let him do that. Plan, plan, need a plan. Why aren't you working brain? You can come up with multi-phrasal insults, but not-   
-but I got nothing, so, when he let me go, I, still having no plan, continued to play dead, which I'm pretty sure isn't normally in the wolf repertoire when it comes to killing and/or mauling things. I do my best to go limp, to land in the mud without care for where my limbs go (my right forepaw is twisted rather painfully beneath me, but I can't change that without giving it away; God, my heartbeat alone would give it alone, and I swear from the way it was thrumming the game was already given way, but, as I kept telling myself, I'd never studied war. I'd fought – and survived – because I did what instincts told me to do. But they didn't control me. We weren't completely like wolves; we leaned enough towards humanity to retain our conscious thoughts when phased, to think when we were phased. We may've been created or evolved or manufactured to be vampire-destroying machines, but we don't have to be that way. We can make treaties with them. We can be friends with them, even the stupid sleep-stalking, mind-raping cunt if we wanted to. Knowing Ed-weird, there's no way I'd ever want to be, but the fact of the matter is I can hate him because he's a sexually-repressed, thought-invading, stupidity-rewarding, idiotic vampire, not just 'cause he's a vampire. Which, I think, is infinitely better. Which is why we weren't animals or the machines he claimed. Because we can fight against ourselves), to act like I'm dead.   
Maybe it works, and he thinks I am, but he could just as well think he managed to paralyse me worse than he wanted – I don't know – but, whatever the reason, he doesn't run off the moment I'm down. No, he circles me instead, as if trying to figure out what happened – why, perhaps, I'm "dead" and not him, which is feeding into his mammoth superiority complex – and, after a moment or two of this, during which I swear so much fear is running through my veins it's amazing I'm not shaking from the strength of it, he kneels in front of me – I can smell him, the salty scent of his pack that has no business mingling in with werewolf scent giving his position away. We're almost muzzle-to-muzzle. Slowly, I sensed him grow closer, and every nerve in me screamed that he'd seen through it and was going for my throat.   
He went for my shoulder instead, almost concernedly nudging me, and I inextricably thought of children getting carried away at recess, not meaning to hurt the other, not meaning it at all, and not knowing what to do...   
When I didn't do anything, he tried it again, a nudging the space slightly below and behind one of my ears. My veins were singing with adrenaline, but still I played dead, even when he made a sad almost-whimper that would've torn my heart if this was a made-for-TV movie and I was still pregnant. I might've even given something away now, surprised to hear actual concern for another human being coming from Sam, but the rain was sneaking in larger and larger groups under the spruce canopy, and I was too cold to give even a quarter-damn about my ex and his messed-up feelings.   
Sam pulled back, not far, but enough that I wondered if Ness had snuck up on us, her small, quiet sounds lost to the thunder snarling above us. Surely she could smell us too? Half-human she may be, the half-vampire in her was more than enough for her to play tracker. She had to know that it wasn't just me here. She had to smell Sam, or got close enough to see with sharp eyes to learn what was going on (she'd seen him in wolf form before; she had to know there weren't any other black wolves, that this wasn't play-fighting...) and run for help...   
But no. Whatever caused him to pull back, I'll never know, 'cause half-a-moment later he'd moved close then before and licked my muzzle.   
It was all I could do not to vomit. I'd been thinking of keeping up this game until whoever was following Nessie showed up, or until he made some blatant move to kill someone, but this was just... this was just too much. And with the cadence of his every movement (made all the more lamenting by the endless fall of rain, which was doing a good job of freezing my hundred-something Fahrenheit ass) assuring me he was thinking something pansy-assed about how he "loved me too much to let me die" that I'm sure Emily would love to hear – him say it to me that is, that way she could walk out on him again. God knows if Jake tried to pull that card on me, he'd be singing soprano for the rest of his life.   
My eyes snapped open of their own accord. It was dark, but I didn't need to see for my claws to strike out of their own accord as, loudly, I snapped, enraged at his daring, his stupidity; his gall: How dare you! I felt my claws rake across his face as I pulled myself to my paws, seeing red (or was that blood?). How dare you! There went the other paw, drawing blood down the left side of his face. And again, and again, and again, paws alternating, tearing at whatever they could reach in a way I wasn't consciously controlling, but did nonetheless.   
Surprise had caught Sam, shock that I was "alive" or that I mightn't appreciate his advances, or maybe he was just completely crazy, 'cause he didn't react – not at first – to my attack. His eyes still held that manic I-don't-care look from before, but it wasn't the same, not exactly. Before, it was only emptiness. Now... I don't know what it was now. Nor do I care. I was too angry to care. You can't keep doing this! I don't love you. I've never loved you!But, God, why do you insist on ripping open that hole in my heart you gave me every time you see me? I'm not sure he knew either, but that didn't matter, 'cause he was backing up, towards the dark presence that was probably the trunk of the spruce that towered over us the way the rain lightened as we neared it, until he at last realized I wasn't giving in and struck back, until we were grappling, standing on our hind legs as we went for each other's throats with claws and teeth.   
I don't want to kill you, he seems to say to me as our mêlée continues, but I will if I have to.   
There's blood streaming down his muzzle, though, and his movements slowed, not from desire to end our tussle, but pain – dimly, in the back of my mind, like I would if it was a member of my pack that was hurt, I noticed that I'd more than grazed his fur this time; there were deep lacerations on his shoulders and withers too, and, from one fall or the other, at least one of ribs was fractured – but didn't stop. Do you ever pause to consider the things that come out of your mouth? (Nevermind the fact that this conversation wasn't even real, that I couldn't actually here what he was saying, if he was saying anything at all.) What do you think killing Ness might accomplish? You think the Cullens'll forgive you that one? That Emily'll come running back to you once you've proved how macho you are by killing a kid? Yeah, I'm sure that'll work, you brain-dead piece of week-old gorilla-shit.   
It's not about Emily, or me, even you. It's not even about The Spawn.   
Then who? If not us, then who, you purple-panda-punching, rabid-rodent-raping piss-hat of a tongue-chewing bastard's son?   
I was yelling, essentially, at myself I knew, but it didn't feel that way. It was almost, but not quite, like arguing with a pack-member when we were phased. Like, maybe, I wasn't making it up, though I knew I had to be. It didn't matter, though, cause still I swiped at Sam, not daring to stop, not wanting to stop, though God knew I that giving him something he wanted was never my style.   
And I continued to argue with "him". If I kill one, the rest will leave and will never come back. Not after something like that. Then La Push will be safe from leeches, forever. And then there will be no need for werewolves, and no one else will ever have to go through this again. No more packs. No more pain.   
I think the part of my brain thinking up "Sam's" answers is on something. I'm sure that's what our ancestors said. And yet, here we are. Claws dug into his muzzle. Blood was everywhere, and not all of it his. A deep cut ran down my right foreleg, though it was healing. All our wounds were healing, but Sam still kept getting slower, and I kept attacking.   
I imagined a harrumph. God! You can be such a pain in the ass, LeeLee! If the Cul- But even in my imaginings Sam never called me "LeeLee."   
I paused for just a second, long enough to scramble back half-a-step and feel my forepaws hit the ground, as much blood (or so it smelled) in the mud as water. Sam back-peddled too, wearily sinking into the ferns beneath the giant spruce. When the lightening struck, I thought I saw a smile crossing his muzzle.   
What are you doing fucking around in my head, Uley? I spat, falling back onto my own haunches.   
Dying, he said blithely, head resting on paws. He never said anything blithely...   
You'll heal.   
That was a distinct chuckle. For all you talked about killing me for what I did to you, I never thought you'd actually do it. I always thought-   
I snorted, but pulled myself to my paws again. Thought what? That I still loved you? That I was too weak to fight against such a "strong and virile" Alpha? Nessie's smell was strong now, even over the mud and blood, but I couldn't hear any movement. Was she hiding? And where was her follower? The smell was stronger now, all freesia and rosemary and lavender, but with that spicy undertone that said Sargent Pepper had been the one following Ness. Maybe it was the rain diluting the scent, or the wind, and he was waiting in the wings to see what happened, or maybe he'd picked up his niece and run, but I couldn't tell where the empath or his lonely hearts club band were. I snorted again. I take this means you've given up? No more of this fake Alpha business?   
He didn't answer any of my questions. I always thought it would be Jacob that got me in the end. An echo thought, one he didn't mean to send, followed: He's stolen everything else. Flickers of images I'd never seen before – of being watched through my bedroom window, the room dark and X&Y in the CD player, and my brother coming in and telling me to stop moping – of being listened-in on through a different window, this one at Uncle Eric's place in Neah Bay, and the words floating down mine, telling her how I was trying to think up a way to break up with him – danced in and out of my mind, leaving quickly but staying long enough for me to know that Sam was a stupid, stalking, deluded dirt-bag in addition to his many other wonderful traits. Even softer still, I've tried so hard to do right.   
I closed the distance between us and growled at him, my bottom lip only stinging a little from where it'd been sliced open earlier. So you're just going to give up, are you? Well, that's just rich. The rain was cold, and Sam looked like someone I'd never seen crouched there, a useless blob of black-fur-covered flesh that wanted to die rather than face anything hard or painful or difficult. I was close enough to finish him off, and it took all the strength in me not to give him what he wanted. No, I was going to make him live and have to deal with it all. That's the biggest load of-   
Maybe he'd seen him. Maybe he'd just been lucky enough to catch his scent. Maybe he was merely hoping against all hope. I don't know. Maybe I'll never know. All I do is that I wasn't the only one close enough to finish our battle, and Sam leapt at me with strength he must have hidden, and, though I was able to fling myself backwards (breaking all the ribs on my right side, I'm sure, and quite possibly my hip), I wasn't able to stop his madness, which I could not understand.   
I'd been right, you see, and Jasper was hidden away in the darkness that surrounded us, and it was Jasper who, seeing Sam was not given up, collided with him mid-jump and twisted his neck before turning and asking me if I was well enough to phase back.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Part Four: ...Where is thy victory?

"...grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand,   
not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned..."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
It took me a moment, but I managed, though I lay in the sludge of earth and blood for a long moment before I could manage to stand.   
"He was fixin' to kill you," he said, seeming quite detached, as we watched the rent corpse of the black wolf shake and convulse back into Sam naked, rent body. There was no question it was a voluntary phasing: neither of us could hear a third heartbeat, could mark the rise and fall of his lungs. After a moment, he shrugged off the beat-up duster he'd on over his name-brand clothes and handed it to me before kneeling down to turn the body face up.   
I tied the coat around me closely, hugging my arms to myself as I shuddered from something decidedly other than the cold. "He overheard me on the phone to Kate; thought Alice was coming onto the Rez." As numb as I felt, even I could see him tense at this. "Managed to convince him otherwise, but he didn't care. He wanted to kill someone, anyone, and heard Ness..."   
Nessie's voice from beside me almost made me jump out of my skin – I'd not noticed her approach. "Your face is bleeding, Aunt Leah."   
"I'll heal," I said softly, feeling weak and dazed. "I... I've got to..."   
"I'll take care of it," Jasper said, sounding about as numb as I felt inside... He was an empath, I remembered. He'd probably felt Sam die... Sam had been in my head when he died... Was this what it was like, death? The sudden feeling of cold, the catch of breath, the- "disguise this as an animal attack. Hikers come this way, occasionally. Someone will find him in a day or two." He stood and looked at me, "You should get home; the shock's already settin' in."   
"I-" I swallowed, trying not to be sick at the thought of what I'd helped do. "I did this. Let me-"   
"You can't be connected with this. Trust me," he gave a wane smile, "I've practice with this sort of thing." When I didn't immediately leave, "I'll make sure Ness stays in sight. Nothing'll happen to her."   
Having no other choice, I did just that, running human all the way, though my right side hurt like hell, though I was soaked to the bone by the time I made it back to the home, where the TV was still playing (muted) the same movie, where the laundry was still in baskets on the floor, and walked straight up the stairs and into the master bath, dropping the coat on the way. I didn't wait for the water to warm, just stood there, trying to wake up whatever was inside of me, so I could go get Di and Dan, so I could put away the laundry, so I could-   
But nothing came, and I just stood there, just as long as I could, and could think of nothing other than the fact that someone else was dead because of me, and that I didn't know how to feel about that.   
"That's weird," came a voice untold ages later, carrying from downstairs. "Aunt Leah left the door hanging open. You think-"   
"Zack! Don't change the subject! We need to talk about this, and we need to talk about this now." Judy. That was defiantly Judy's voice. Matty's little sister. Only she'd grow up, and Matty never would, all 'cause-   
"Why now?"   
"'Cause the rest the pack is all at Quil's and Aunt Leah doesn't seem to be around-"   
The sound of the door closing. "She could just be upstairs."   
"Probably sleeping. No better time. It's a simple question. I just want to know the answer."   
"We've been best friends since kindergarten, Judy; of course I love you." The voices were coming nearer, his words seeming strained. I smiled – briefly and smally – at their banter. It was warm and familiar, and said said home.   
"You know that's not what I meant."   
"We're only-"   
"Just numbers! They don't mean anything. Between the Volturi and everything else, I feel so old..."   
"I-" they paused, their voices echoing up the stairwell. "God, Judy, you know I like you, but-"   
"But what?"   
"What if we imprint? On other people, I mean. You 'member what Aunt Leah was like, before. I wouldn't want that to happen if-"   
"And what if we die tomorrow?"   
I felt a sob escape me. I didn't want to think, not about that, about anything but that. Just an hour, maybe two more without having to remember that we're going to have to have another funeral- "You hear something?"   
"Zack!"   
"No, really-"   
"Just listen for a second Zack! The world just seems to get crazier and crazier the more time we spend in it, and our chances of getting out of it alive keep getting slimmer. And I don't want to die without knowing if you-"   
"Judy, I don't want to do this, not if it's just because you're afraid of-"   
"I love you, Zack. I think I've been in love with you since I met you, and I think that, if you feel the same way, I don't want to spend another moment without you."   
I think he flung up his hands from the sound of it. And I continued to listen, for no other reason than Judy and Zack were there, and alive, and two of the only good things I'd ever done. "We spend all our time together as it is, Judy. We're in the same back, we share the same room – God, we're in each other's heads half the time. I don't know what more you want."   
"Yes you-"   
"Alright, yes I do, but, like I said, but what if one of us imprints? What if it just doesn't work out? I like what we have now, Judy. I don't want to loose that."   
"We won't."   
"But what if-"   
"I'd rather try and know than not and always wonder."   
I took the sounds that came afterwards to be her answer, and I smiled at the thought of it.   
But I couldn't stay in here and listen to them forever, however much easier it might be, and the sound of the water cutting off caught their attention, sending them both rushing up the stairs, feigning innocence. "Hey, Aunt Leah, we just- what the hell happened to you?"   
And so I told them. And the others, when Judy had the sense of mind to call them home. And to Charlie, when Jake and I drove to the station, to pick up Di and Dan, who were, thank God, safe and sound. And to the Cullens, when we went there afterwards, to make sure Jasper had taken care of everything. And his old pack, when we found them, one at a time, all through the evening. And we pretended around Becca and her husband, around my Makah relatives, even Emily, that nothing was wrong in the time it took to find him.   
I think Emily knew, though. I think she had to know what he was going to try. She didn't come to his funeral, thrown together in the thirty-six hours after his body was found and identified, though she was in town. It was the day before the wedding Jake and I didn't need. After everyone else had left, though, I saw her, standing at the edge of the cemetery, watching me as I stared at the weeping angel we buried our mutual ex beneath. Sam... Sam I could feel sorry for – if I tried. In so many ways he didn't have a choice, or didn't think he did. But Emily had choices. She could've said no to Sam, at least 'til we were broken up. She could've left him long ago. She could've told me what he was planning, if she knew. But she didn't, and either she was too ashamed of that to come closer, or...   
She'd left by the time Jake had come back with the Rabbit.   
This wasn't the way he'd wanted to resolve the two packs issue. As much as it might've been nice to be rid of Sam, we'd never really wanted him dead, and a sense of "never again" had settled over all of us.   
Coming up to me, where I stood, staring not at the names, but at the stupid, weak, weeping angel, "We're going to be late to the Cullens'."   
"They're immortal. Time means like nothing to them. They'll get over it."   
"There was nothing else you could've done, Leah."   
"Then why do I feel like week-old horse-shit about it?"   
Kissing the top my head – the only convenient place he could reach, "Because it should've had to end this way, and you know it. You tried reasoning with him, you tried fighting him, you tried everything, but, in the end, the only thing he wanted that you could give him was this."   
"Bastard."   
"Let's go. Emmett claims to have bought all the vodka in fifty miles for our experiment, and you know he and Embry will start without us if we don't get there soon. Last I heard, the pot is up to $3,520, and favourite is that it'll take three bottles before Emmett realizes the vampires can't get drunk and twice that before he gives up entirely."   
"And what're the odds for the rest of us?"   
"Seven-to-four that it'll be five bottles before we feel anything, three-to-one that Seth'll pass out first, and Kate has good money that Carlisle will break it up before we manage to get any sort of useful drunk at all." He put an arm around my shoulders and started to lead me to the Rabbit. "Jasper even got Paul to lay down fifty that we'll be drunk enough for everyone to know it at the wedding tomorrow, even though Rachel said that if he dared play our 'little game' that she'd lock him out of the house for a week."   
A burst of laughter escaped me, "He'll be sleeping on her front porch the whole time."   
"Jasper has a pool on that too. That pot's past 5K."   
"Well then, let's go have some fun."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"...it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."   
St. Francis of Assisi


End file.
